Section 5.4: Catalytic Proficiency
- At this point, you should have some familiarity with the two kinetic parameters Km and kcat
- Since Vmax is equal to kcat times the total amount of enzyme, then in conditions where
the substrate concentration is very small, we can substitute this for Vmax in the
Michaelis-Menten equation:
- This gives a second-order rate constant equal to kcat / Km.
- This can then be compared to a non-enzymatic rate constant in order to assess
the catalytic proficiency of an enzyme, which is the ratio of the enzymatic rate to the non-enzymatic rate
of a reaction