Maths Skill: Drawing a Graph for Enzyme Rate Experiments
Enzyme rate experiments?are experiments that are carried out to determine the?effect?of?changing?a particular?factor?on the?rate of a reaction?that is catalysed by an enzyme
Factors that can be?changed?include:
Temperature
pH
Enzyme concentration
Substrate concentration
The ways in which the?reaction rate?can be?measured?include:
Measuring how much of a?product?is?made?in a?given time period?(e.g. using a gas cylinder to collect the oxygen produced from the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide by catalase)
Measuring how much a?substrate?is?broken down?in a?given time period?(e.g. using iodine to determine how quickly starch is broken down into maltose by amylase)
Line graphs?should be used to present the results of enzyme rate experiments
The data should be plotted with the?independent?variable on the?x-axis?and the?dependent?variable on the?y-axis
If a?trend?can be identified, a?line of best fit?(straight or curved) should be added to the graph
If asked in an exam, you can use this line of best fit to?interpolate?(reading off values in between existing data points) or?extrapolate?(going beyond the range of existing data points to read off values)
Using the graph and best fit line below, for example, you can use?interpolation?to conclude that, at a substrate concentration of?3?arbitrary units, the rate must have been?1.8?arbitrary units and you can use?extrapolation?to conclude that, at a substrate concentration of?10?arbitrary units, the rate will be?6?arbitrary units
The results of an enzyme rate experiment, with substrate concentration as the independent variable
For some enzyme rate experiment graphs, it may be necessary to plot?more than one?set of data on the?same graph
For example, if investigating the effect of?temperature?on the rate of an enzyme-controlled reaction, you may need to plot a line graph with multiple lines, where each line represents the data collected at a specific temperature
When drawing a graph like this, make sure to?clearly label each line
An example is shown below:
The results of an enzyme experiment. It is the volume of product produced and not the rate of reaction that has been plotted on the y axis for this graph. The initial rate of reaction is represented by the initial gradient of the lines on the graph. As the temperature is the factor being manipulated it is the independent variable.
Tips for plotting line graphs
When plotting?line graphs?for enzyme rate experiments, remember the following:
Plot data points?accurately
Use?appropriate?linear scales on axes
Choose scales that enable?all data points?to be plotted?within?the graph area
Label axes, with?units?included
Make graphs that fill the space the exam paper gives you
Draw a line (or curve) of best-fit to identify?trends. The line must be smooth and have a?balance?of data points?above?and?below?the line
In some cases, the line of best fit should be drawn through the?origin, for example for rate–concentration graphs (the reaction cannot occur if the concentration of enzyme or substrate is 0). The line of best fit should?only?go through the origin if the data and trend?allow it