Structural Biochemistry/Enzyme/Binding energy
Structure[edit | edit source]
The binding energy is the free energy that is released by the formation of weak interactions between a complementary substrate and enzyme. The binding energy is maximized since only the correct substrate can interact with an enzyme and is released when the enzyme facilitates formation of the transition state. This interaction between the enzyme and the transition state gives way to the maximum binding state. Upon formation of the transition state, the activation energy is lowered, which will speed up the reaction.
Binding energy is known as separation energy that is the requirement for dissociation of chemical substance to its constituent components. There are different binding energies at different molecular level such as electron binding energy, atomic binding energy, nuclear binding energy, and gravitational binding energy.
With the units of eV, electron binding energy is the energy required to release an electron from its atomic or molecular orbital. According to Moseley's law, the binding energies of 1s electron are proportional to(Z-1)2.
To dissemble an atom into free electrons and nucleus, atomic binding energy is required. It is the energy that was derived from electromagnetic interaction.
Nuclear binding energy is also known as binding energy of nucleons into a nuclide. It was derived from the strong nuclear force and is the energy required to disassemble a nucleus into the same number of free unbound neutrons and protons that its contained. Such that the particles are far enough from one another so that the strong nuclear force can no longer cause the particles to interact. In bound systems, the mass must be subtracted from the mass of the unbound system, if the binding energy is removed from the system, because this energy has mass. If subtracted from the system at the time it is bound, the mass of the system will be removed. Since the system is not closed during the binding process, system mass is not conserved.[1]
