Enzymes and Metabolic Processes (Essay Sample)

Enzymes and Metabolic Processes Students Name Institution Course Number: Course Name Instructors Name Assignment Due Date Enzymes and Metabolic Processes Enzymes are important natural chemicals that facilitate chemical action in living organisms. This is because they are directly involved in metabolic pathways, which are sequences of conjugated processes of biochemical transformations in which certain substances change from one form to another through a chain of chemical reactions to which they bear optimum adaptation. These pathways are called anabolic pathways, which construct substances from simple substances, and catabolic pathways, which decompose to liberate energy. They provide energy to the reactions that would otherwise not take place by reducing the activation energy required for the reaction to proceed: they catalyze reactions without the consumption of cellular material (Arcus et al., 2020). As mentioned, the position of each enzyme is well defined at the substrate it interacts with; molecules and atoms in the responsive loci of an enzyme are fitted to an exclusive key in a lock. This specificity guarantees that metabolic pathways are orderly and unhurried, so they do not squander cellular constituents. Furthermore, enzymes are essential in regulating metabolic pathways. Their activity can be regulated in different ways, including Allosteric regulation, covalent modification, or a feedback mechanism, where the end of a process's product inhibits an earlier enzyme to avoid the overproduction of this product (Faulkner and Jo, 2022). For example, in the glycolysis cellular metabolism pathway, the phosphofructokinase enzyme is controlled by the concentrations of ATP so that energy generation corresponds to the energy demand within the cell. In conclusion, enzymes enable cells to carry out complex biochemical processes rapidly and efficiently, ensuring proper cellular function and ho...