The kinetics of an enzyme catalyzed reaction in the presence of an unstable,irreversible modifier

• 1.1. The chemical modifications of enzymes is a widely used technique to gain information about the number, type and location of aminoacid residues which are essential for activity. A number of these modifiers are unstable in aqueous solutions and act irreversibly.
• 2.2. The kinetics of such systems have previously been studied under assumptions, some of which are either unnecessary or too restrictive.
• 3.3. We replace these assumptions by others which are more realistic and less stringent.
• 4.4. These assumptions allow us to derive analytical expressions for the evolution of all the species involved in the reaction.
• 5.5. From the analytical expression for the time course of the product formation an experimental design and a kinetic data analysis allowing the easy characterization of these systems are suggested.