Kinetic aspects substrate binding

In a series of papers, we have proposed the torsional mechanism of energy transduction and ATP synthesis, the only unified and detailed molecular mechanism of ATP synthesis to date [16-20,56] which addresses the issues of ion translocation in Fq [16, 20, 56], ionmotive torque generation in Fq [16, 20, 56], torque transmission from Fq to Fj [17,18], energy storage in the enzyme [17], conformational changes in Fj [18], and the catalytic cycle of ATP synthesis [18, 19]. We have also studied the thermodynamic and kinetic aspects of ATP synthesis [19,20,41,42,56]. A kinetic scheme has been developed and mathematically analyzed to obtain a kinetic model relating the rate of ATP synthesis to pHjn and pH m in the Fq portion and the adenine nucleotide concentrations in the Fj portion of ATP synthase. Analysis of these kinetic models reveals a wealth of mechanistic details such as the absence of cooperativity in the Fj portion of ATP synthase, order of substrate binding and product release events, and kinetic inequivalence of ApH and Aip. 

This equation is fundamental to all aspects of the kinetics of enzyme action. The Michaelis-Menten constant, KM, is defined as the concentration of the substrate at which a given enzyme yields one-half of its maximum velocity. is the maximum velocity, which is the rate approached at infinitely high substrate concentration. The Michaelis-Menten equation is the rate equation for a one-substrate enzyme-catalyzed reaction. It provides the quantitative calculation of enzyme characteristics and the analysis for a specific substrate under defined conditions of pH and temperature. KM is a direct measure of the strength of the binding between the enzyme and the substrate. For example, chymotrypsin has a Ku value of 108 mM when glycyltyrosinylglycine is used as its substrate, while the Km value is 2.5 mM when N-20 benzoyltyrosineamide is used as a substrate... 

The non-competitive and uncompetitive modes of inhibition described above are special cases that in practice arise very rarely in these simple forms. In reality, the situation is usually more complex in that inhibitors bind with differing affinities to the free and substrate-bound forms of the enzyme, and also the ternary EIS complex may be able to undergo catalysis, albeit at a lower rate. These circumstances define what is called mixed inhibition, which is less easy to characterise since the kinetic behaviour and equations are much more complex. The reader is referred to Cor-nish-Bowden (1995) for a comprehensive and authoritative account of this and other aspects of enzyme kinetics. 

---