Transient phase kinetics of activation of human plasminogen (Q1820078)

Most enzymatic reactions start with an activation process which synthesizes the enzym itself from inactive predecessors. Recent biochemical investigations revealed all steps of a special enzym called plasminogen comprising seven steps of activation and three steps of catalyzation. Under suitable conditions (excess of substrate) this process can be described by a system of ten ordinary linear differential equations \(\dot x=Ax.\) The authors consider the structure of the matrix A and especially the \(7\times 7\)-matrix B for the activation process. They show that det B\(=\det B_ 1\cdot \det B_ 2\), \(B_ 1\) a \(5\times 5\)- and \(B_ 2\) a \(2\times 2\)-matrix, and that the largest eigenvalues of both \(B_ 1\) and \(B_ 2\) vanish. Finally they propose an experimental set up allowing to determine all velocity constants, that is all components \(\neq 0\) of the original matrix A. Steady state considerations (t\(\to \infty)\) lead to the known equilibrium model of Wohl.