mjolnir80 said:
lets say an enzyme is inhibited by something binding to its allosteric site. what effect would this have on the enzymes Km and Vmax?
Can be an effect on either or both.
Monod originally invented the terms 'K system' and 'v system' for effects on K and v respectively.
(I think K effects are more common, but also effects that are purely 100% one or the other are not all that common, though sometimes the v effect is fairly small.)
And with a given enzyme you may find a K effect with one substrate and a v effect with another. There is nothing in theory that says that any effect has to be one or another.
You will realize of course that many allosteric enzymes do not
have a K
m, because, especially in presence of an inhibitor, the substrate dependency of the reaction rate is not Michaelian but co-operative. The affinity can be expressed by the S
0.5, the substrate concentration at half-saturation which is equal to K
m in the case of non-cooperative kinetics. An allosteric inhibition in a K system will increase S
0.5 (shift v,S curves to right). An allosteric inhibitor in a v-system will reduce V
max. Both practically by definition! S
0.5 is more an empirical than a thermodynamic affinity parameter, the thermodynamic one is the 'median ligand concentration' equal to S
0.5 only for symmetrical* curves but that I imagine is for later if at all.
*against log
that is