Question
Question: How does \( pH \) affect cellular respiration?...
How does pH affect cellular respiration?
Solution
Hint : When we talk about cellular respiration, enzymes play a main role in it. Now we know pH is a scale to determine any given substance is acid or base. As enzymes known to have an optimum pH value.
Complete Step By Step Answer:
Enzymes are very important when it comes to cellular respiration as it helps for catalytic reaction. As we have discussed enzymes have optimum pH value that means slight change in the pH can affect the whole process and won’t be able to catalyse the reactions. As we know basically enzymes are proteins and it consists of long chains of amino acids in which hydrogen is very important.
We know in general pH is the number of hydrogen ions present in any substance. So if enzymes have less number of hydrogen ions or more number of hydrogen ions the bond of amino acids present in enzymes will change which will result in changing shape and denaturing it.
Note :
Most parts of our body have neutral pH value. The number of hydrogen ions is inversely proportional to the pH scale value. Slight change in pH value in cellular systems and the system won’t function properly anymore.