Kinetic behaviour of zymogen activation processes in the presence of an inhibitor.

A global kinetic analysis of a general zymogen activation model, where not only the activating but also the activated enzyme suffer an irreversible inhibition is presented. A reaction in which the enzyme acts upon a substrate is coupled to monitor the process. In addition, we determined the corresponding kinetic equations for a number of particular cases of the general model studied. Finally, a kinetic data analysis and a procedure to discriminate among the different mechanisms considered, which are based on the kinetic equations obtained, are suggested.