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17
Enzyme Kinetics of
Hydrolytic Reactions

1. Introduction

Modern physics has emphasized the description of the properties of
matter and energy in terms of the behavior of elementary particles. In
a similar vein, molecular biology describes living systems in terms of
their elementary particles, the molecules. This chapter is a discussion
of an application of analytical methods to the dynamic behavior (kinetics)
of a class of molecules called enzymes. Enzymes are biological catalysts
of a primarily protein nature. 1 A catalyst is a chemical substance which
alters a rate of reaction, although the catalyst itself is in the same state
after the reaction as it was before the reaction. The catalyst may be
altered during the reaction but returns to its original state after the
completion of the reaction.

Many uncatalyzed systems exist in nonequilibrium conditions because
the reaction rates to reach equilibrium are so slow. A catalyst speeds
up the rate of attaining equilibrium but does not in itself alter the

____________________
1 The chemical composition and structure of proteins are discussed in Chapter 15.

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Publication Information: Book Title: Biophysical Science. Contributors: Eugene Ackerman - author. Publisher: Prentice-Hall. Place of Publication: Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Publication Year: 1962. Page Number: 315.
    
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