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The Effect Of Ph On Catechol Oxidase

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Henriquetta Saba
Paul Samipla
Bio 1130
20 October 2014

The Effect of pH on Catechol Oxidase

Abstract Catechol, in the presence of oxygen is oxidized by catechol oxidase to form benzoquinone (Harel et al., 1964). Bananas and potatoes contain catechol oxidase that acts on catechol which is initially colorless and converts it to brown (Harel et al., 1964). In this experiment, the effect of pH on the activity of catechol oxidase was conducted using buffers ranging from pH2 to pH10. Two trials were conducted due to the first trial results being altered by an external factor. The results were acquired by taking readings every 2 minutes for 20 minutes from a spectrophotometer and then recorded on to the table. The data collected in the table were then made into graphs to illustrate the influence of pH on the catechol oxidase catalyzed reaction. After analysis, the data revealed that pH did have a significant influence on the enzyme as recorded by absorbance per minute. However, the data was collected was not accurate due to external factors, thus the results are debatable and should be experimented again for validation.

Introduction Living cells within our bodies perform an abundance of chemical reactions very speedily because of the participation of enzymes. Enzymes are biological catalysts that speed up a chemical reaction without being depleted or altered in the reaction (Garrette & Grisham, 1999). The

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