Single‐Molecule Kinetics of an Enzyme in the Presence of Multiple Substrates

Abstract

Herein, the catalytic activity of a single enzyme in the presence of multiple substrates is studied. Three different mechanisms of bisubstrate binding, namely, ordered sequential, random sequential and ping-pong nonsequential pathway, are broadly discussed. By means of the chemical master equation approach, exact expressions for the waiting-time distributions, the mean turnover time and the randomness parameter as a function of the substrate concentration, such that both concentrations are fixed, but one of them is changed quasi-statically are obtained. The randomness parameter is not equal to unity at intermediate to high substrate concentrations, which indicates the presence of multiple rate-limiting steps in the reaction pathway in all three modes of bisubstrate binding. This arises due to transitions between the free enzyme and the enzyme-substrate complexes that occur on comparable timescales. Such turnover statistics of the single enzyme can also distinguish between the different types of bisubstrate binding mechanisms.