Kinetic analysis of the michaelis-menten mechanism in which the substrate and the product are unstable

Abstract

• 1.

  1. A kinetic analysis of the Michaelis-Menten mechanism for the case in which both the substrate and the product are unstable, either spontaneously or as the result of the addition of a reagent, has been made.

• 2.

  2. The explicit time course equations of the immediate product and the species into which it subsequently is transformed have been derived under the conditions of rapid equilibrium and limiting substrate concentration.

• 3.

  3. The validity of these equations has been checked using numerical simulations.

• 4.

  4. The kinetic data analysis which we suggest is based on the time progress curves of the product or, in the case in which the product accumulation cannot be monitored experimentally, on the time progress curve of the species into which the immediate product is transformed.

• 5.

  5. This analysis allows the determination of the rate and the equilibrium constants if adequate experimental results are available.

• 6.

  6. We have chosen a numerical example, with which we illustrate the procedure of the kinetic data analysis by simulating some curves with assumed experimental errors.