Catalyze

(To the tune of “Close to You”) / Recording by Barbara and Neal Gladstone

My enzymes
Truly are inclined

To convert
Things they bind

Turn the key
Covalently
Cat-a-lyze

How do cells
Regulate these roles?

Allo-ster
-ic controls

Two forms, see
States R and T

Mod-u-late

Competing inhibition keeps
The substrates from the active site
They raise Km, but leave Vmax and shirk
While the non-competers bind elsewhere
And lift the plot made on Lineweaver-Burk

Other ways
Enzymes can be blocked
When things bind
Then get locked

Stuck not free
Tied to the key
Su-i-cide

Penicillin’s action stops
Peptidoglycan cross-links in
Bacterial cell walls in awesome ways
Beta lactam ring’s reactive site
Starts bonding with D-D-transpeptidase

So there are
Several enzyme states

Counteract
-ing substrates

Now you see
Blocking the key

Reg-u-lates

Cat-a-lysts
Have to be controlled
Some get slowed
Some on hold
It’s sublime
How the enzymes
(slow) Cat-a-lyze

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – cat-a-lyze
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – cat-a-lyze
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – cat-a-lyze