Factors Affecting the Rate of Enzyme Reactions

Enzymes are highly sensitive to their environmental conditions, and the rate at which an enzyme-catalysed reaction proceeds can be affected by several factors: temperature, pH, substrate concentration and enzyme concentration. The rate of an enzyme reaction itself is measured either by how much substrate is consumed, or how much product is formed, over a given period of time. Each of these four factors is examined individually in the following sub-sections, since each affects the reaction rate through a distinct mechanism - some by altering how often en …