Ask Questions and Construct a Hypothesis: How Do Insecticides Work?

Enzymes and Enzyme Inhibitors
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Enzymes and Enzyme Inhibitors
Enzymes can be defined as the biological catalysts, which speeds up chemical reactions of a cell and they are made up of large protein molecules. Enzyme inhibitors can be described as molecules which when interacted with an enzyme; they alter its normal functioning (Virtual Chembook, 2003). There are different types of inhibitors, which include competitive, non-competitive, specific, nonspecific, irreversible, reversible, allosteric, and feedback inhibition among others. Nonspecific inhibitors affect all enzyme activities in the same way. For specific inhibitors, they only affect the reaction of a single enzyme, which is the characteristic of most poisonous. On another hand, competitive inhibitor refers to compounds, which closely resembles molecular geometry as well as the chemical structure of the substrate. Thus, competitive inhibitors compete with enzymes for the same active sites of the cell. Subsequently, the non-competitive inhibitor interacts with enzymes but not at the active site of the cell.
On another hand, chlorpyrifos in insects work by interfering with chemical activities of an enzyme called cholinesterase. It is important to note that enzyme cholinesterase is vital for the proper working of insects’ nervous system (National Pesticide Information Center, 2010). Thus, chlorpyrifos interferes with the physiology of insects leading to their deaths. Therefore, chlorpyrifos is a competitive inhibitor since it competes with the cholinesterase for the active sites of the nervous system.

Consequently, I expect chlorpyrifos to be toxic to humans because it blocks human cells enzyme that controls traveling of a message between nerve cells. My question for this assignment is; is chlorpyrifos toxic to animals like rats? To get the answer to this question, I am going to carry out the small experiment described below. I will put chlorpyrifos on rat food then place it at a strategic place. The hypothesis, in this case, will be that rat will it that poisoned food in time before poison is weakened due to exposure to the atmosphere.
References
National Pesticide Information Center (2010). Chlorpyrifos. Retrieved on 21st October 2018 from http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/chlorpgen.htmlVirtual Chembook (2003). Enzyme Inhibitors. Retrieved on 21st October 2018 from http://chemistry.elmhurst.edu/vchembook/573inhibit.html