Tag: enzyme

Enzymes provide alternative routes to product with a lower activation energy

Maxwell Boltzmann distribution [CC-BY-SA-3.0 Steve Cook]

An enzyme lowers the activation energy for a reaction Like a previous post, the problem here is not so much that this idea is flat-out wrong, but that it’s very prone to misinterpretation. Text-books often state that an enzyme, or any other catalyst, lowers the activation energy of a reaction. The activation energy for a reaction (written …

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The Michaelis-Menten model is not applicable to most enzymes in a cell

Sigmoidal kinetics [CC-BY-SA-3.0 Steve Cook]

Enzymes in cells can be modelled using the Michaelis-Menten model Enzymes can be, and often are, modelled by the Michaelis-Menten (well, Briggs-Haldane) model: v = vmax · [S] / (KM + [S]) Where: v is the velocity of the enzyme, which is the rate at which product accumulates vmax is the maximum velocity of the enzyme (i.e. …

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