A computer assisted method to control the steady state of an ATP-regenerating assay

A mathematical procedure is presented which permits to calculate the steady-state concentrations of AMP, ADP and ATP in an ATP-regenerating assay containing pyruvate kinase and lactate dehydrogenase as auxiliary enzymes. The accuracy of this procedure is demonstrated by the agreement of the calculated concentrations with the experimental data obtained in measurements of mitochondrial ATPase activities. The computer-assisted procedure can be employed (a) to determine extremely low adenine nucleotide concentrations which are difficult to obtain by direct measurements and (b) to adjust and to optimize the assay conditions according to the specific requirements of the experiment, including high concentrations of ATP and prescribed ATP/ADP ratios.