Enzymes
Functions
Enzyme functions by binding to one or more of the reactants in a reaction.
they work to make reactions go faster in digestive and metabolic (energy related) processes. They are called 'catalysts' because they speed up the reaction by lowering the amount of energy needed to get the reaction started.They are larger than the substrate they act on. During a reaction, only 3 or 4 amino acids of the entire structure are involved in the catalysis. These regions where the catalytic residues bind to the substrate and carry out reactions is called the active site. Co-factors can also bind to the enzymes for carrying out reactions.
Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/enzyme-function.html
Naming
An enzymes name is often more derived from its substrate or the chemical reaction it catalyzes. With one word endings in -ase.
The International Union of Biochemistry (I.U.B.) initiated standards of enzyme nomenclature which recommend that enzyme names indicate both the substrate acted upon and the type of reaction catalyzed. Under this system, the enzyme uricase is called urate: O2 oxidoreductase, while the enzyme glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT) is called L-aspartate: 2-oxoglutarate aminotransferase.
This is an induced fit model.