The Curve That Turns

An enzyme is a fold, and the fold is the function. Warm it and the rate climbs — more collisions, more of them hard enough to matter. Keep warming and the curve does something a straight line never does: it turns, and falls off a cliff. That fall is not fewer collisions. It is the protein coming unfolded. Same story for pH, same story for an inhibitor that reshapes the site from across the molecule. Three environments, one lever: shape.

AP BIOLOGY · 8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · RATE PEAKS AT THE OPTIMUM · THE FALL IS DENATURATION · UNFOLDING ≠ BROKEN BACKBONE · v1