Podcast
Questions and Answers
What is the partition function used for in the phenomenological approach to ligand binding?
What is the partition function used for in the phenomenological approach to ligand binding?
The partition function is used to formulate a polynomial expansion in the ligand activity x of degree N, equal to the number of binding sites.
What is the difference between the kinetic and equilibrium treatment of ligand binding?
What is the difference between the kinetic and equilibrium treatment of ligand binding?
The kinetic treatment of ligand binding depends not only on the number of distinct ligated species in the system but also on their conformations, while the equilibrium treatment is based on the formulation of a partition function as a polynomial expansion in the ligand activity x of degree N.
What is conformational selection and why is it a dominant mechanism of molecular recognition in biology?
What is conformational selection and why is it a dominant mechanism of molecular recognition in biology?
Conformational selection is a mechanism of molecular recognition that assumes that the free target exists in multiple conformations in equilibrium and that the ligand selects the optimal one for binding. It is a dominant mechanism in biology because it includes induced fit as a mathematical special case and captures kinetic properties of more complex reaction schemes.
