Enzyme kinetics studies the rates of biochemical reactions. Scientists monitor the reaction rates for a particular enzymatic reaction at various substrate concentrations. Additional trials with inhibitors or other molecules that affect the reaction rate may also be performed.
The experimenter can then plot the initial reaction rate or velocity (Vo) of a given trial against the substrate concentration ([S]) to obtain a graph of the reaction properties. For many enzymatic reactions involving a...

The Arrhenius equation,

Kinetics describes the rate and path by which a reaction occurs. In contrast, thermodynamics deals with state functions and describes the properties, behavior, and components of a system. It is not concerned with the path taken by the process and cannot address the rate at which a reaction occurs. Although it does provide information about what can happen during a reaction process, it does not describe the detailed steps of what appears on an atomic or a molecular level. On the other hand,...

Enzymes speed up reactions by lowering the activation energy of the reactants. The speed at which the enzyme turns reactants into products is called the rate of reaction. Several factors impact the rate of reaction, including the number of available reactants. Enzyme kinetics is the study of how an enzyme changes the rate of a reaction.
Scientists typically study enzyme kinetics with a fixed amount of enzyme in the controlled environment of a test tube. When more reactant, or substrate, is...

Transition-state theory, also known as activated-complex theory, provides a molecular-level explanation of reaction rates in both gas-phase and solution-phase reactions. It extends earlier kinetic models by considering the formation of a short-lived, high-energy configuration during a reaction.The progress of a chemical reaction can be represented using a reaction profile, which plots potential energy against the reaction coordinate. As two reactant molecules approach one another, their...

The free energy change for a process may be viewed as a measure of its driving force. A negative value for ΔG represents a driving force for the process in the forward direction, while a positive value represents a driving force for the process in the reverse direction. When ΔGrxn is zero, the forward and reverse driving forces are equal, and the process occurs in both directions at the same rate (the system is at equilibrium).
Recall that Q is the numerical value of the mass action expression...