Rules of the Game
This term refers to anything that can be studied as a unit.
What is a system?
This term refers to the point in a chemical reaction when it has reached optimum stability -- no further net change will occur. At this point, reactions proceed in the forward and reverse directions at the same rate.
What is equilibrium?
Or what is chemical equilibrium?
This is another term that essentially means the same thing as the term "spontaneous reaction."
What is an exergonic reaction?
This term refers to the reactant in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction.
What is a substrate?
These are the two most important environmental conditions that determine an enzyme's activity level.
What are temperature and pH?
This is a type of metabolic process that releases energy as complex/unstable fuel molecules are broken down.
What is catabolism?
These are the products of the hydrolysis of ATP.
What are ADP and inorganic phosphate?
Spontaneous reactions have this kind of Free energy change.
What are negative free energy changes?
Or What is a loss of free energy?
This is the location within an enzyme's structure where the reaction takes place. For coupled reactions, it is here that the endergonic reaction is coupled with an exergonic one.
What is an active site?
This term refers to a non-protein component that is necessary for an enzyme (or other protein) to do its work.
What is a cofactor?
What is chemical potential energy.
This is the feature of ATP that Trent said was one of the main reasons that its structure is so unfavorable/unstable.
What are the negative charges on the phosphates (four of them)?
This term refers to reactions that, in and of themselves, have positive free energy changes, and therefore would need an input of energy in order to work.
What are endergonic reactions?
This term describes the fact that most enzymes' active sites change shape in order to bind to the substrate and catalyze the reaction. Trent illustrated this as the enzyme "clamping down" on the substrate.
What is induced fit?
This term refers to an organic molecule that acts as a cofactor.
What is a coenzyme?
This law states the the total entropy of the universe is always increasing.
What is the second law of thermodynamics?
This is one of the kinds of work that Trent said the energy from the hydrolysis of ATP can power.
What are chemical reactions?
Or What are movements of or within a cell?
This is the condition of a cell in which its reactions had all proceeded to equilibrium. This would happen when it has run out of high-energy molecules that it could use to power its endergonic reactions.
What is death?
Or What is a dead cell?
This is the structure formed (in the process of a chemical reaction) that has the highest free energy. It is the most unstable point of the reaction, and the hardest to attain.
What is the transition state?
This is a type of enzyme inhibition that cannot be overcome by the addition of more substrate. The reason this is true is because the inhibitor binds to some other site, other than the active site, which makes the enzyme inactive.
What is non-competitive inhibition?
What is an open system?
These are the two things about the reactants and products of a reaction that will determine which way the reaction will proceed.
What are the concentrations and (intrinsic) stabilities of reactants and products?
These two things are what Trent said are necessary for a cell to keep doing any reaction that requires an input of energy.
What are molecules with high chemical potential energy and a way to couple the endergonic reaction to an exergonic one?
This is the amount of energy that is required to change the reactant into the transition state of a reaction, so that it can proceed easily to become the product. It is this that is reduced by an enzyme, which causes the reaction to go so much faster.
What is the activation energy?
This term refers to a situation in which a biochemical pathway can be turned down or shut off by the fact that the final product acts as an inhibitor of the first (or an early) step in the pathway.
What is feedback inhibition?