Lab 4 - Introduction Every living organism composed of cells depends on enzymes Enzymes are biological catalysts that lower the activation of chemical

Introduction: Every living organism, composed of cells, depends on enzymes. Enzymes are biological catalysts that lower the activation of chemical reactions, allowing cells to carry out the crucial metabolic processes. In short, without enzymes, cells (and, therefore, all living organisms) could not exist as they do. The purpose of this lab was to design an experiment that would allow one to distinguish competitive from noncompetitive inhibitors in an enzyme-substrate reaction. It was hypothesized that if the competitive inhibitor were used it would bind to the enzyme active site and cycle with the substrate for binding. That is, a reaction with a competitive inhibitor would still allow the normal substrate-enzyme reaction to occur, just at a much slower-than-normal rate. Conversely, when the noncompetitive inhibitor was used, the reaction would not proceed at all because this inhibitor attached to the allosteric site. Either