Chance-Cleland Model for Enzyme-Substrate Interaction

Abstract

Let us next develop a model of a chemical reaction in which an enzyme, E, behaves like a catalyst. There is an initial stock of this enzyme available, some of which will be temporarily tied up due to the production of an intermediate substance, C. Ultimately, the enzyme is released again in unchanged form as some product, P, is formed from the substance C. An additional substance active in this process is the substrate S, which is converted into the product P. Think of the substrate S as dext rose and the product P as fructose: the enzyme E mechanically locks onto the substrate molecule, breaks it into a new molecule, fructose, and is released again after the chemical reaction occurred.¹

Shelley called poets the unacknowledged legislators of the world, and the epithet was well chosen. The catalyst is unchanged, unabsorbed; its activity there fore not acknowledged. - Henry Read, Politics of the Unpolitical