1. The active site of an enzyme usually consists of a pocket onthe enzyme surface lined with the amino acid side chains necessaryto bind the substrate and catalyze its chemical transformation.Carboxypeptidase, which sequentially removes the carboxyl-terminalamino acid residues from its peptide substrates, consists of asingle chain of 307 amino acids. The two essential catalytic groupsin the active site are furnished by Arg145 andGlu270 .
a. How many amino acid residues apart are these two aminoacids?
b. Explain how it is that these two amino acids, so distantlyseparated in the sequence, can catalyze a reaction occurring in thespace of a few tenth of a nanometer?
c. If only these two catalytic groups are involved in themechanism of hydrolysis, why is it necessary for the enzyme tocontain such a large number of aa residues?
2. What level of protein structure would be disrupted by thefollowing below
a. heat
b. strong acid
c. saturated salt solution
d. organic solvents such as alcohol and chloroform
