Balancing Conditions for Multisubstrate Reactions

Determining balanced conditions for a single substrate enzyme reaction is usually straightforward one simply performs a substrate titration of reaction velocity, as described in Chapter 2, and sets the substrate concentration at the thus determined Ku value. For bisubstrate and more complex reaction mechanism, however, the determination of balanced conditions can be more complicated. 

We saw in Chapter 3 that bisubstrate reactions can conform to a number of different reaction mechanisms. We saw further that the apparent value of a substrate Km (KT) can vary with the degree of saturation of the other substrate of the reaction, in different ways depending on the mechanistic details. Hence the determination of balanced conditions for screening of an enzyme that catalyzes a bisubstrate reaction will require a prior knowledge of reaction mechanism. This places a necessary, but often overlooked, burden on the scientist to determine the reaction mechanism of the enzyme before finalizing assay conditions for HTS purposes. The importance of this mechanistic information cannot be overstated. We have already seen, in the examples of methotrexate inhibition of dihydrofolate, mycophenolic acid inhibiton of IMP dehydrogenase, and epristeride inhibition of steroid 5a-reductase (Chapter 3), how the [5]/A p ratio can influence one s ability to identify uncompetitive inhibitors of bisubstrate reactions. We have also seen that our ability to discover uncompetitive inhibitors of such reactions must be balanced with our ability to discover competitive inhibitors as well. 

The determination of bisubstrate reaction mechanism is based on a combination of steady state and, possibly, pre-steady state kinetic studies. This can include determination of apparent substrate cooperativity, as described in Chapter 2, study of product and dead-end inhibiton patterns (Chapter 2), and attempts to identify 

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