Enzyme Kinetics Flashcards
What assumptions are made about substrate concentration when discussing Michaelis-Menten kinetics?
- The rapid equilibrium approximation: K1 and K-1 are small compared to Kp
- Initial rate/High [S]: [S] represents the free substrate concentration and is assumed to be close to the total substrate concentration because the reaction just began
- Initial Rate: The [ES] rapidly became steady because substrate is unlimited and [EP] is tiny
What is Vmax?
Vmax is the maximum velocity that would occur when all the enzyme is part of the enzyme-substrate complex
What is kp?
The reaction constant between the enzyme-substrate complex and the enzyme + product step
What is k-1?
Dissociation constant between the enzyme-substrate complex step and the enzyme + substrate step
What is the steady state assumption?
The concentrations of the intermediates of a reaction remain the same even when the concentrations of starting materials and products are changing
What does a high Kcat value signify?
Faster product production
What is the specificity constant?
Kcat/Km
Why is Kcat/Km the specificity constant?
The equation is basically the maximum product production per enzyme over the inverse efficiency of substrate binding.
What is a Lineweaver-Burk plot?
The plotting of Michaelis Menten kinetics as a double reciprocal
What can you tell by a Lineweaver-Burk plot?
- The slope is Km/Vmax
- y-intercept is 1/Vmax
- x-intercept is -1/Km
Why are inhibitors necessary in biological systems?
They regulate proteins
What is competitive inhibitor?
A type of reversible inhibition. The inhibitor competes with substrate for binding, then binds to the active site but does not affect catalysis.
What is a mixed inhibitor?
Inhibitor binds enzyme or enzyme-substrate complex. Binds to the regulatory site. Inhibits catalytic function and substrate binding.
What is the Michaelis constant? What does it represent?
Km represents a dynamic, in-progress reaction where the concentration of intermediate complexes does not change
How do you set up Michaelis-Menten conditions?
The concentration of substrate must be 100x larger than Ks and the fastest initial rate of product formation/substrate disappearance is measured
If given a graph with Velocity on the y-axis and [S] on the x-axis, how do you find Km?
Just like measuring the Kd, the Km is the x-coordinate at the 1/2 Vmax
What does Km approximate?
Km is a measure of roughly how much substrate is needed for full speed. The inverse substrate binding efficiency and the cellular [S]
What would happen is [S] was very different from Km?
The enzyme would be insensitive to changes