Each enzyme has a temperature at which it works best. A slight increase in temperature can increase enzyme activity while a larg
e increase in temperature can cause the enzyme to become denatured. Which of the following best explains what happens when a protein becomes denatured? a. The enzyme absorbs heat until the temperature decreases, and the reaction then continues normally.
b. The enzyme loses its shape and is no longer able to catalyze chemical reactions.
c. The enzyme breaks apart into the amino acids that originally combined to form the enzyme.
d. The enzyme unfolds and refolds into a different shape, and is used to catalyze a different chemical reaction.
The correct option is B. The shapes of enzymes are very important because their shapes determines the kind of chemical reactions that they can catalyse. This is because the substance been catalyzed must fit into the active sites of the enzyme that is been used. In a situation where an enzyme becomes denatured, such an enzymes losses its original shape and this remove from it the capacity to catalyze chemical reactions, thus, it becomes non functional.
