Abstract

The study of enzyme reaction mechanisms is fundamentally important to our understanding of biochemistry, cellular metabolism, and drug development. This Perspective focuses on the use of kinetic solvent viscosity effects (KSVEs) to study enzyme reactions. This technique is easily implemented and uses steady-state kinetic analyses to probe whether substrate binding is diffusion-controlled and whether product release is the rate-limiting step in the catalytic cycle. In addition, KSVEs can identify isomerization steps that are important for catalysis. The use of KSVEs in combination with other techniques, such as kinetic isotope effects, pH effects, and site-directed mutagenesis, can provide a detailed view of the mechanism of enzyme action. We present the basic theory, important experimental considerations, and potential outcomes and briefly discuss some examples from the literature. The derivation of the equations that are important for data analysis is also presented.

Department(s)

Chemistry

Comments

National Science Foundation, Grant 1506206

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1520-4995; 0006-2960

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2024 American Chemical Society, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

26 Jun 2018

PubMed ID

29874467

Included in

Chemistry Commons

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