Understanding Enzymes: Error Bars, Substrate Drops, and Insulin Structure

[faisal]

hello every 1,
i have a few questions
-i'd like to know what error bars are & how did i plot them on a graph?
-can some one please give me a scintific explanation to why small drops of substrate are introduced into a enzyme when trying to find its activity, all i know is that if all the substrate is added to the enzyme all at once, it will be immediately used up, small drops of substrate initiate the reaction but i don't know how?
why is insulin referred to as gobular when it has a quatenary structure?
and what makes an enzyme so specific, is it its spherical shape? or the nature of the enzyme to have only 1 functional region?
how do you calculate the rate of a reaction?

 

[GCT]

These are very general questions, all of which you should have learned by now.

from what I remember, error bars refer tot he standard deviation of the y value; although there are variations to the concept.

for your second question, refer to the michaleis menton derivation, the equation actually depends on certain assumptions, you should become familiar with them.

especially the last two questions...what makes an enzyme specific, spherical shape, gobular-quaternary structure...come on and how do you not know how to calculate the rate of a reaction?

someone else here may be willing to regurgitate the fundamentals

 

[Moonbear]

These are very general questions, all of which you should have learned by now.

from what I remember, error bars refer tot he standard deviation of the y value; although there are variations to the concept.

Usually in the biological sciences, error bars refers to standard error of the mean, which is the standard deviation divided by the square root of the N. You can plot them easily in pretty much any software that does graphing, but without knowing what software is being used, I wouldn't know where to begin to suggest pointers of how to do that.

someone else here may be willing to regurgitate the fundamentals

Not until faisal shows some attempt at the answers first.

 

[faisal]

thanx for the info, i have another question how does the mass of the substrate affect the rate of the reaction?
whats the advantage of meassuring the volume of gas released from the rate of a reaction to +/-0.1cm3?