Question

What do you mean by the “Turn- over number”?

(a) Occurrence of saturation

(b) Conversion of amount of substrate into product

(c) Conversion of amount of product into substrate

(d) Enzyme unbound with substrate

The question was asked in a national level competition.

My doubt stems from General Reaction Kinetics for Biological Systems in chapter Homogenous Reactions of Bioprocess Engineering

Answer 1

The correct choice is (b) Conversion of amount of substrate into product

For explanation I would say: When all enzyme is bound to substrate kcat, the turnover number, is the maximum number of substrate molecules converted to product per enzyme molecule per second. Further addition of substrate does not increase the rate which is said to be saturated.