Catalysis
Enzymes are a class of biological catalysts. They govern many catalytic processes such as metabolism, nutrition, and energy conversion of organisms. Most of the reactions closely related to life processes are enzyme-catalyzed reactions.
These properties of the enzyme enable the intricate process of material metabolism in the cell to proceed in an orderly manner, and to adapt material metabolism to normal physiological functions. If an enzyme is defective due to genetic defects, or the enzyme activity is weakened by other reasons, it can cause an abnormal reaction catalyzed by the enzyme, disturb the metabolism of the substance, and even cause disease. Therefore, the enzyme is closely related to medicine.
Enzymes enable the human body to digest and absorb nutrients in food, and maintain all internal organ functions including: cell repair, anti-inflammatory detoxification, metabolism, improve immunity, generate energy, and promote blood circulation. For example, when the rice is chewed in the mouth, the longer the chewing time, the more obvious the sweet taste is. The starch in the rice is hydrolyzed to maltose by the action of the salivary amylase secreted by the mouth. Therefore, chewing more during meals can fully mix food with saliva, which is good for digestion. In addition, there are many hydrolytic enzymes in the human body such as pepsin and trypsin. The protein that the human body ingests from food must be hydrolyzed into amino acids under the action of pepsin, etc. Then, under the action of other enzymes, more than 20 amino acids required by the human body are selected, and the proteins required by the adult body are reassembled in a certain order.
Disease diagnosis
With the in-depth study of enzymes, complex enzymes rich in high-concentration SOD have played an increasingly significant role in disease conditioning. The enzyme activity of normal human body is relatively stable. When certain organs and tissues of the human body are damaged or disease occurs, some enzymes are released into blood, urine or body fluids. Such as acute pancreatitis, serum and urine amylase activity is significantly increased; hepatitis and other causes of liver damage, hepatocyte necrosis or enhanced permeability, a large amount of transaminase is released into the blood, and serum transaminase is elevated; Serum lactate dehydrogenase and phosphocreatine kinase were significantly increased. When organophosphorus pesticides cause poisoning, cholinesterase activity is inhibited, and serum cholinesterase activity is decreased; in certain hepatobiliary diseases, especially bile duct obstruction, serum r-glutamyl transmutase is increased and so on. Therefore, by measuring the activity of enzymes in blood, urine or body fluids, we can determine the occurrence and development of certain diseases.
Clinical treatment
Enzyme therapy has gradually been recognized. Various enzyme preparations are becoming more and more common in clinical applications, such as trypsin and chymotrypsin, which can catalyze the breakdown of proteins. This principle has been used in surgical expansion, purulent wound purification, and the treatment of thorax and abdominal serous adhesions. In the treatment of thrombophlebitis, myocardial infarction, pulmonary infarction and diffuse intravascular coagulation, plasmin, streptokinase, urokinase, etc. can be applied to dissolve blood clots and prevent the formation of thrombus.
Some compound natural enzymes, based on high-unit SOD enzymes, can not only be used for the adjuvant treatment of important organs such as the brain, heart, liver, and kidney, but also have achieved significant results in the use of tumors. In addition, it also uses the principle of competitive inhibition of enzymes to synthesize some chemical drugs for antibacterial, bactericidal and antitumor treatments. For example, enzymes and spleen and kidney have better conditioning on infertility and other issues. And sulfa drugs and many antibiotics can inhibit the enzymes necessary for the growth of certain bacteria, so they have bacteriostatic and bactericidal effects; many anti-tumor drugs can inhibit the enzymes related to nucleic acid or protein synthesis in cells, thereby inhibiting tumor cells. Differentiation and proliferation to counteract the growth of tumors; thiouracil can inhibit iodinase, which affects the synthesis of thyroxine, so it can be used to treat hyperthyroidism and so on.
Production and living
Yeasts used in the brewing industry are produced by related microorganisms. The role of enzymes converts starch and other processes into alcohol through hydrolysis, oxidation and other processes. The production of soy sauce and vinegar is also completed under the action of enzymes. Feeds treated with amylase and cellulase have improved nutritional value; adding enzymes to laundry powder can increase the efficiency of the laundry powder, making sweat stains that were difficult to remove easily removed.
Due to the wide application of enzymes, the extraction and synthesis of enzymes has become an important research topic. Enzymes can be extracted from organisms, such as bromelain from pineapple skin. However, due to the low content of enzymes in the body, a large number of enzymes in the industry are produced by microbial fermentation. Generally, under appropriate conditions, the required strains are selected and allowed to propagate to obtain a large number of enzyme preparations. In addition, people are studying the artificial synthesis of enzymes. In short, with the improvement of scientific level, the application of enzymes will have very broad prospects.