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Tyrosinase Lab Report

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Introduction The enzyme kinetics lab introduces students to the quantitative measurement of enzyme activity with the addition of the enzyme, tyrosinase. Tyrosinase is found in many organisms. This enzyme is responsible for a pathway beginning with the amino acid, tyrosine, and ending with the formation of melanin, a black pigment. Several experiments are conducted using this enzyme due to its significant effects many factors. Tyrosinase causes the darkening of skin with response to sunlight as well as the darkening of a fruit or vegetable such as a pear, apple, or potato when exposed to air. Researchers study tyrosinase to learn about Albinism. This occurs due to many mutations linked with the tyrosinase gene. Tyrosinase has also played a …show more content…

The spectrophotometer was used to measure the concentration of compounds in a solution according to the amount of light that passes through the solution. We warmed up the spectrophotometer for about 10 minutes and set the wavelength at 540 nm. Five test tubes were prepared each containing a different amount of catechol, water and substrate concentration. Tube one contained 1.0 mL of Buffer, pH 6.0 0.1 M NaPO4 including 0.1 mL of 0.006 M catechol, with 150 uM of substrate concentration and 1.9 mL of distilled water. Tube two contained 1.0 mL of Buffer, pH 6.0 0.1 M NaPO4 including 0.2 mL of 0.006 M catechol, with 300 uM of substrate concentration and 1.8 mL of distilled water. Tube three contained 1.0 mL of Buffer, pH 6.0 0.1 M NaPO4 including 0.4 mL of 0.006 M catechol, with 600 uM of substrate concentration and 1.6 mL of distilled water. Tube four contained 1.0 mL of Buffer, pH 6.0 0.1 M NaPO4 including 0.8 mL of 0.006 M catechol, with 1200 uM of substrate concentration and 1.2 mL of distilled water. And finally, Tube five contained 1.0 mL of Buffer, pH 6.0 0.1 M NaPO4 including 1.6 mL of 0.006 M catechol, with 2400 uM of substrate concentration and 0.4 mL of distilled water. All five of the test tubes also contained 1.0 mL of enzyme, which would be added right before testing each tube for absorbance. After preparing all of the test tubes, each tube was inserted in the spectrophotometer one-by-one and recorded its change in absorbance for five minutes. Before placing the tube in the spectrophotometer, we added the enzyme, quickly mixed the solution then inserted into the absorbance reader. With the data collected, we made a graph of absorbance vs. time and calculated the Vmax and

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