Notes On Kinetics Of Enzyme Kinetics

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Kinetics of Enzyme catalysed reactions: Enzyme kinetics deals with the rate of enzyme catalyzed reactions. This provide information about several important aspects such as:- i)Specificity of enzyme ii)Mechanism of enzyme action iii)Parameters which characterize the physical properties of enzymes. In order to understand enzyme kinetics, it is important to understand Vmax and Michaelis-Menten constant. The rate of reaction catalyzed by an enzyme increases linearly with the substrate concentration up to a point but soon reaches the maximum value called Vmax beyond which there is no further increase in reaction rate. Michaelis and Menten define a constant, designated as Km which is useful …show more content…

When all the enzymes has reacted with the substrate at high concentration, the reaction will be going at maximum rate. No free enzyme will remain so that [E]0 = [E]. Hence from equation(1) rmax = Vmax = k3[E]0……………………......(3) Where Vmax is the maximum rate. The Michaelis-Menten equation now can be written as r = Vmax[S]/(Km+[S])……………..(4) Two cases arises: (a) Km>>[S] so that [S] can be neglected in the denominator of the equation(3) Giving r = Vmax[S]/Km = k/ [S] (first order reaction) (b)[S]>>Km so that Km can be neglected in the denominator, giving r = Vmax = constant (zero order …show more content…

At low substrate concentration, most of these active sites remain unoccupied at any time. As the substrate concentration is increased ,the number of active sites which are occupied increases and hence the reaction rate also increases however at very high substrate concentration, virtually all the active sites are occupied at any time so that further increase in substrate concentration cannot further increase the formation of enzyme-substrate complex. It is rather difficult to determine Vmax directly from plot of r against [S]. It is however, possible to rearrange the Michaelis-Menten equation (4) so to permit some alternative plots for easy determination of Vmax. Two of the best known methods which make use of rearranged equations are as follows: 1.The Lineweaver-Burk method: r = v =

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