[Kinetics of dissolution of solid protein substrates by proteinases. Selection of the reaction mechanism]

Experimental data on the rate of enzymatic degradation of a solid protein phase in relation to reagent concentrations in the gelatin gel--proteolytic enzyme solution system was obtained. It was shown that different transformations of the Michaelis-Menten equation do not provide any satisfactory description of the reaction kinetics. A method for the discrimination of putative reaction mechanisms based on the analysis of effective values of constants in the general equation for the rates of dissolution of proteins with different molecular weights was proposed. The experimental results are in favour of a two-step consecutive mechanism taking account of surface concentrations of the adsorbed enzyme and hydrolyzable bonds.