Akademik

A property of certain proteins (often enzymes) in which the binding curves or saturation curves or, in the case of enzymes, a plot of initial rates as a function of initial substrate concentration, are nonhyperbolic; suggests that the binding of a ligand has a different affinity at different ligand concentrations. Both allosterism and hysteresis are models that will display c.. Cf.:allosterism, hysteresis.

- negative c. c. in which successive ligand molecules appear to bind with decreasing affinity.

- positive c. c. in which successive ligand molecules appear to bind with increasing affinity.