Papain is a cysteine protease of the peptidase C1 family that consists of a sing

Question

Papain is a cysteine protease of the peptidase C1 family that consists of a single polypeptide chain with three disulfide bridges and a sulfhydryl group necessary for activity of the enzyme. It is extracted from papaya fruits and used widely in cooking as a meat tenderizer. A biochemistry graduate student performed preliminary Michaelis-Menten kinetics to measure the activity of the enzyme. During his experiment he varied the concentration of substrate and held the concentration of enzyme constant at 1.6 x 107 M. Here is a plot of his data:

Explanation / Answer

From the given plot,

(a) Km = -1/intercept on x-axis

            = -(-1/7.5)

            = 0.133 mM

(b) Vamx = 1/intercept on y-axis

                = 1/4.7

                = 0.213 mM/min

(c) Kcat = Vmax/Et

              = 0.213 mM/min/1.6 x 10^-4 mM

              = 1331.25 min-1

            

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