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Nearly 100 years ago Michaelis and Menten published their now classic paper [Michaelis, L., and Menten, M. L. (1913) Die Kinetik der Invertinwirkung. Biochem. Z. 49, 333-369] in which they showed that the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction is proportional to the concentration of the enzyme-substrate complex predicted by the Michaelis-Menten equation. Because the original text was written in German yet is often quoted by English-speaking authors, we undertook a complete translation of the 1913 publication, which we provide as Supporting Information. Here we introduce the translation, describe the historical context of the work, and show a new analysis of the original data. In doing so, we uncovered several surprises that reveal an interesting glimpse into the early history of enzymology. In particular, our reanalysis of Michaelis and Menten's data using modern computational methods revealed an unanticipated rigor and precision in the original publication and uncovered a sophisticated, comprehensive analysis that has been overlooked in the century since their work was published. Michaelis and Menten not only analyzed initial velocity measurements but also fit their full time course data to the integrated form of the rate equations, including product inhibition, and derived a single global constant to represent all of their data. That constant was not the Michaelis constant, but rather Vmax/Km, the specificity constant times the enzyme concentration (kcat/Km × E0). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly 100 years ago Michaelis and Menten published their now classic paper [Michaelis, L., and Menten, M. L. (1913) Die Kinetik der Invertinwirkung. Biochem. Z. 49, 333-369] in which they showed that the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction is proportional to the concentration of the enzyme-substrate complex predicted by the Michaelis-Menten equation. Because the original text was written in German yet is often quoted by English-speaking authors, we undertook a complete translation of the 1913 publication, which we provide as Supporting Information . Here we introduce the translation, describe the historical context of the work, and show a new analysis of the original data. In doing so, we uncovered several surprises that reveal an interesting glimpse into the early history of enzymology. In particular, our reanalysis of Michaelis and Menten's data using modern computational methods revealed an unanticipated rigor and precision in the original publication and uncovered a sophisticated, comprehensive analysis that has been overlooked in the century since their work was published. Michaelis and Menten not only analyzed initial velocity measurements but also fit their full time course data to the integrated form of the rate equations, including product inhibition, and derived a single global constant to represent all of their data. That constant was not the Michaelis constant, but rather V(max)/K(m), the specificity constant times the enzyme concentration (k(cat)/K(m) × E(0)).

Lignocellulosic biomass is a potential source of renewable, low-carbon-footprint liquid fuels. Biomass recalcitrance and enzyme cost are key challenges associated with the large-scale production of cellulosic fuel Kinetic modeling of enzymatic cellulose digestion has been complicated by the heterogeneous nature of the substrate and by the feet that a true steady state caimot be attained. We present a two-parameter kinetic model based on the Michaelis-Menten scheme (Michaelis, L., and Menten, M. L. (1913) Biochem. Z., 49, 333-369) with a time-dependent activity coefficient analogous to fractal-like kinetics formulated by Kopehnan (Kopelman, R. (1988) Science 241, 1620-1626). We provide a mathematical derivation and experimental support to show that one of the parameters is a total activity coefficient and the other is an intrinsic constant that reflects the ability of the cellulases to overcome substrate recalcitrance. The model is applicable to individual cellulases and their mixtures at low-to-medium enzyme loads. Using biomass degrading enzymes from ceDulolytic bacterium Thermobijida fitsca, we show that the model can be used for mechanistic studies of enzymatic cellulose digestion. We also demonstrate that it applies to the crude supernatant of the widely studied cellulolytic fungus Tridioderma reesd; thus it can be used to compare cellulases from different organisms. The two parameters may serve a similar role to Vmax, KM, and Kcat in classical kinetics. A similar approach may be applicable to other enzymes with heterogeneous substrates and where a steady state is not achievable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]