Dynamic disorder in quasi-equilibrium enzymatic systems.

ABSTRACT: Conformations and catalytic rates of enzymes fluctuate over a wide range of timescales. Despite these fluctuations, there exist some limiting cases in which the enzymatic catalytic rate follows the macroscopic rate equation such as the Michaelis-Menten law. In this paper we investigate the applicability of macroscopic rate laws for fluctuating enzyme systems in which catalytic transitions are slower than ligand binding-dissociation reactions. In this quasi-equilibrium limit, for an arbitrary reaction scheme we show that the catalytic rate has the same dependence on ligand concentrations as obtained from mass-action kinetics even in the presence of slow conformational fluctuations. These results indicate that the timescale of conformational dynamics--no matter how slow--will not affect the

SUBMITTER: Chaudhury S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2927515 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature