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WHAT ARE ENZYMES?
Enzymes are catalyst which speed up biological reactions. An enzyme is a protein molecule that is a biological catalyst with three characteristics.  The basic function of an enzyme is to increase the rate of a reaction. Most cellular reactions occur about a million times faster than they would in the absence of an enzyme. Second, most enzymes act specifically with only one reactant (called a substrate) to produce products. The third and most remarkable characteristic is that enzymes are regulated from a state of low activity to high activity and vice versa.

Enzymes are commonly named by adding a suffix "-ase" to the root name of the substrate molecule it is acting upon. For example, Lipase catalyzes the hydrolysis of a lipid triglyceride. Sucrase catalyzes the hydrolysis of sucrose into glucose and fructose.


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