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Cells work best at very specific pH's, too low or high and they will not function properly.

All living things are water-based systems, which means that they depend heavily on aqueous equilibria, especially acid-base equilibria. Therefore, all the acid-base and pH concepts we have discussed so far are extremely important to biochemistry, which is the study of the chemistry of biological systems.

Just as in other acid-base systems, biological macromolecules act as acids and bases by donating and accepting protons. However, due to the size of these molecules, they often contain several different groups that accept or donate protons instead of just one such group. Thus, we talk about macromolecules as having acidic and basic groups rather than as being acids and bases. These acidic and basic groups act as weak acids and bases, with Ka values which determine the extent of dissociation of the group depending on the pH of the system. Therefore, changes in the pH around the macromolecule will determine which groups are protonated and which are not, which in turn determines properties of the molecule. This is especially important for enzymes, which are proteins that act as catalysts for important biological reactions. Most enzymes only work within a certain pH range.

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