# What do you call the process of using an enzyme? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 4, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834 "2018-04-04T21:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/1 "2018-04-04T21:45:18Z")
There are three things I can have done to my milk: pasteurization, homogenization, and the process of exposing the milk to the lactase enzyme, which causes the lactose to spontaneously break down into simpler sugars. Is there a word for that last thing? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/2 "2018-04-04T21:59:34Z")
Digestion? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/3 "2018-04-04T22:07:25Z")
Catalization? ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/4 "2018-04-04T22:20:39Z")
Some other possibilities: biocatalysis bioprocess cultured ingredient production or the technical term: adding an ingredient ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/5 "2018-04-04T22:29:29Z")
I think the way you should word it depends on the needs and wants of your audience. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/6 "2018-04-04T22:33:27Z")
Hydrolysis is the name for the type of reaction where lactose is broken down into glucose and galactose (lactase is a hydrolase). So you can call the process enzymatic hydrolysis of lactose. > **[Enzymatic hydrolysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzymatic_hydrolysis)** > > In biochemistry, enzymatic hydrolysis is a process in which enzymes facilitate the cleavage of bonds in molecules with the addition of the elements of water (i.e. hydrolysis). It plays an important role in the digestion of food. > It may be used to help provide renewable energy, as with cellulosic ethanol. > This molecular or cell biology article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. This enzyme-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/7 "2018-04-04T22:53:32Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Catalization? Won’t “catalysis” do if you want to use a more general term? There are a few google hits for “catalyztion”, which I guess is being used to distinguish the idea of _using_ a catalyst from just describing the chemical process of catalysis. But I tend to think “catalysis” really covers both meanings. In every google hit I’ve looked at, the word “catalysis” in place of “catalyzation” sounds better to me. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/8 "2018-04-04T22:58:04Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Won’t “catalysis” do if you want to use a more general term? Yeah, that was just a brain fart trying to come up with the term for the process of a catalyst in action. [Catalysis is right](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyme_catalysis). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/9 "2018-04-05T03:31:45Z")
Yes, lactase is a catalyst for the digestion of lactose because it speeds up the reaction by many orders of magnitude. That’s why enzymes exist. Otherwise digestion would be too slow a process to do us any good. It’s an interesting exercise to think of what digestion would be like without enzymes. Would we become as slow as rocks to allow the time needed for molecules to hydrolyze on their own? I wonder if multi-celled organisms are even possible without enzymes. Or can you go up to simple animals before they are necessary? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/10 "2018-04-05T14:34:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Yes, lactase is a catalyst for the digestion of lactose because it speeds up the reaction by many orders of magnitude. That’s why enzymes exist. Otherwise digestion would be too slow a process to do us any good. > > It’s an interesting exercise to think of what digestion would be like without enzymes. Would we become as slow as rocks to allow the time needed for molecules to hydrolyze on their own? > > I wonder if multi-celled organisms are even possible without enzymes. Or can you go up to simple animals before they are necessary? My immediate hunch is that enzymes are required for even the simplest organisms. It’s not just that they speed up reactions, the speeding up of specific reactions and not others means you get preferential reactions. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/11 "2018-04-05T15:12:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s an interesting exercise to think of what digestion would be like without enzymes. Would we become as slow as rocks to allow the time needed for molecules to hydrolyze on their own? > > I wonder if multi-celled organisms are even possible without enzymes. Or can you go up to simple animals before they are necessary? There is no notion of life without enzymes, pretty much by definition. An enzyme is any molecule that catalyzes a biochemical reaction, so all of metabolism consists of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, including the _synthesis_ of biomolecules. Without enzymes, you can have no organization and therefore no life - just soup. The most fundamental enzymatic reaction in life is catalysis of replication of the genetic material. RNA molecules have much greater potential catalytic activity than DNA, and one of the leading hypotheses for the origin of life is RNA World, in which the genetic information was carried by RNA molecules that could catalyze their own replication. > **[RNA world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world)** > > The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth, in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins. The term also refers to the hypothesis that posits the existence of this stage. > Alexander Rich first proposed the concept of the RNA world in 1962, and Walter Gilbert coined the term in 1986. Alternative chemical paths to life have been proposed, and RNA-based life may not have been the first life to exist. Even so, the... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/12 "2018-04-05T21:41:24Z")
Thanks. I assumed that an enzymeless world is a thought exercise like Flatland, but I’m not on a first-name basis with any single-celled organisms. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2018, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/13 "2018-04-05T21:58:24Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It’s an interesting exercise to think of what digestion would be like without enzymes. Would we become as slow as rocks to allow the time needed for molecules to hydrolyze on their own? There’s a simpler problem here: If you define life as just self-replication, you do indeed get life without enzymes. You even get living rocks. You have, in fact, defined salt crystals to be alive: They have a crystalline structure which they will self-replicate endlessly given the right conditions. No enzymes required. Biologists don’t think of crystals, or fire, or prions as being alive, but excluding them while including single-celled life requires a more subtle distinction. That distinction is metabolism, and metabolism requires enzymes. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/14 "2018-04-06T02:19:29Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > There’s a simpler problem here: If you define life as just self-replication, you do indeed get life without enzymes. You even get living rocks. You have, in fact, defined salt crystals to be alive: They have a crystalline structure which they will self-replicate endlessly given the right conditions. No enzymes required. > > Biologists don’t think of crystals, or fire, or prions as being alive, but excluding them while including single-celled life requires a more subtle distinction. That distinction is metabolism, and metabolism requires enzymes. Which is why it’s tricky to classify viruses, which don’t metabolize, but which instead use other cells to create copies of themselves. Prions work differently in that they direct modify proteins, but viruses at least hijack life processes, and can be said to be in control of a cell that they have successfully managed to get to make copies of itself. At that point in time, the virus is sorta alive in that it has managed to used cellular processes to reproduce itself, processes that require the rest of the necessities of life to take place. When the cell bursts with all the virus copies it dies, and the virus goes back to being not-really-alive until one of the copies manages to infect another cell. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/15 "2018-04-06T03:07:05Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > Which is why it’s tricky to classify viruses, which don’t metabolize, but which instead use other cells to create copies of themselves. Prions work differently in that they direct modify proteins, but viruses at least hijack life processes, and can be said to be in control of a cell that they have successfully managed to get to make copies of itself. At that point in time, the virus is sorta alive in that it has managed to used cellular processes to reproduce itself, processes that require the rest of the necessities of life to take place. When the cell bursts with all the virus copies it dies, and the virus goes back to being not-really-alive until one of the copies manages to infect another cell. As I understand it, there isn’t a lot of definitional uncertainty here: Viruses don’t metabolize, so they’re unambiguously not alive as far as biologists are concerned, even though medical people talk about “live virus” vaccinations and similar. Terminology doesn’t always match up precisely between fields, even closely-aligned fields. (I mean, physicists have two different metric signatures for flat spacetime!) Somewhat more interesting are bacterial obligate intracellular parasites, like what causes leprosy: They’re not viruses, and they’re alive, but they can’t reproduce outside of the cells of their hosts. _They_ skirt the boundary between alive and non-living matter more closely than viruses and prions do. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/16 "2018-04-06T10:52:41Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > As I understand it, there isn’t a lot of definitional uncertainty here: Viruses don’t metabolize, so they’re unambiguously not alive as far as biologists are concerned Nope. [Very](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/) [contentious](http://theconversation.com/are-viruses-alive-giant-discovery-suggests-theyre-more-like-zombies-75661) [issue](https://www.google.com/search?q=are+viruses+alive&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1). Myself, I like the life definition of life as “[a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing darwinian evolution](https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=31DHWp2JC8X8jwSA7Y2wDw&q=%22a+self-sustained+chemical+system+capable+of+undergoing+darwinian+evolution%22&oq=%22a+self-sustained+chemical+system+capable+of+undergoing+darwinian+evolution%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3...1182.9293.0.9851.4.3.0.0.0.0.807.1469.5-1j1.2.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..2.1.805.0..0i30k1.0.GqnEofnUOk8)” (which itself admittedly doesn’t put paid on the virus question because of possible quibbling over the meaning of “self-sustained.”) ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2018, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-call-the-process-of-using-an-enzyme/811834/17 "2018-04-06T15:16:43Z")
My personal response to the “are viruses alive” question is to say that the entire host-virus system is alive. An individual virus is not alive, same as how an individual mitochondria or nucleus is not alive. That fits the definition that **Darren Garrison** posts, as long as you can tolerate a bit of fuzziness and overlap in the boundaries between “self” and “not-self”.