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Enzyme Kinetics: History
Please note this is an old version of this entry, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Contributor: Yu Peng

Enzyme kinetics is the quantitative study of the rates and temporal behavior of enzyme-catalyzed reactions and of how those rates depend on concentrations of substrates, products, enzymes, inhibitors, activators, and relevant physicochemical conditions. It represents enzymatic reactions through kinetic schemes and rate equations describing the formation, interconversion, and decay of enzyme-associated molecular states. For a simple single-substrate reaction under appropriate steady-state conditions, kinetic behavior can be characterized by parameters including the maximum velocity (Vmax) the Michaelis constant (km) the catalytic constant (kcat) and the specificity parameter (kcat/ km) [1][2][3]. The field encompasses initial-rate and steady-state analysis, transient or pre-steady-state kinetics, inhibition kinetics, multi-substrate reaction kinetics, and analysis of complete reaction progress curves. These measurements and mathematical descriptions quantify catalytic turnover, substrate-dependent rate behavior, elementary or composite kinetic steps, enzyme saturation, and changes in reaction velocity arising from molecular interactions that affect the catalytic cycle [2][3]. 

  • Michaelis–Menten kinetics
  • reaction velocity
  • catalytic constant
  • steady-state kinetics

🔵 Enzyme function and inhibition • 🟣 Molecular Biology • 🟡 Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology • 🔴 Life Sciences

References

  1. Yu Ma; Bekir Engin Eser; Bridging Disciplines in Enzyme Kinetics: Understanding Steady-State, Transient-State and Performance Parameters. Catalysts 2025, 15, 1139, 10.3390/catal15121139.
  2. George Edward Briggs; John Burdon Sanderson Haldane; A Note on the Kinetics of Enzyme Action. Biochem. J. 1925, 19, 338-339, 10.1042/bj0190338.
  3. Yun Wang; Guanyu Wang; Nicolas Moitessier; Anthony K. Mittermaier; Enzyme Kinetics by Isothermal Titration Calorimetry: Allostery, Inhibition, and Dynamics. Front. Mol. Biosci. 2020, 7, 583826, 10.3389/fmolb.2020.583826.
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