Enzyme Kinetics - Temperature

Temperature

At low temperatures, as in any chemical reaction, an increase in temperature causes an increase in activity because of the increased kinetic energy of the molecules in solution. This results in more collisions which have the required activation energy. However, at high temperatures a decrease in activity is observed with increased temperature because thermal denaturation of the enzyme protein results.

For each enzyme there is an optimal temperature. For many mammalian enzymes this 37°C, but there are exceptions. For some microbial enzymes, particularly those from thermophilic bacteria, the optimal temperature is as high as 65°C.

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