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AI helping to quantify enzyme activity
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211019223257.htm
To describe metabolic processes facilitated by enzymes, scientists refer to what is known as the Michaelis-Menten equation. The equation describes the rate of an enzymatic reaction depending on the concentration of the substrate -- which is transformed into the end products during the reaction. A central factor in this equation is the 'Michaelis constant', which characterises the enzyme's affinity for its substrate.
It takes a great deal of time and effort to measure this constant in a lab. As a result, experimental estimates of these constants exist for only a minority of enzymes. A team of researchers from the HHU Institute of Computational Cell Biology and Chalmers University of Technology in Stockholm has now chosen a different approach to predict the Michaelis constants from the structures of the substrates and enzymes using AI.