Lineweaver-Burk plot
Overview
Biochemistry
Biochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
, the Lineweaver–Burk plot (or double reciprocal plot) is a graphical representation of the Lineweaver–Burk equation of enzyme kinetics
Enzyme kinetics
Enzyme kinetics is the study of the chemical reactions that are catalysed by enzymes. In enzyme kinetics, the reaction rate is measured and the effects of varying the conditions of the reaction investigated...
, described by Hans Lineweaver
Hans Lineweaver
Hans Lineweaver was an American Physical Chemist, who developed the Lineweaver–Burk plot. The paper containing the equation, also known as the Double Reciprocal Plot, was co-authored by Dr. Dean Burk, and was entitled "The Determination of Enzyme Dissociation Constants "...
and Dean Burk
Dean Burk
Dean Burk was an American biochemist: a co-discoverer of biotin, medical researcher, and a cancer researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the National Cancer Institute...
in 1934.
The plot provides a useful graphical method for analysis of the Michaelis–Menten equation:
Taking the reciprocal gives
where V is the reaction velocity (the reaction rate
Reaction rate
The reaction rate or speed of reaction for a reactant or product in a particular reaction is intuitively defined as how fast or slow a reaction takes place...
), Km is the Michaelis–Menten constant, Vmax is the maximum reaction velocity, and [S] is the substrate concentration
Concentration
In chemistry, concentration is defined as the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Four types can be distinguished: mass concentration, molar concentration, number concentration, and volume concentration...
.
The Lineweaver–Burk plot was widely used to determine important terms in enzyme kinetics, such as Km and Vmax, before the wide availability of powerful computers and non-linear regression
Nonlinear regression
In statistics, nonlinear regression is a form of regression analysis in which observational data are modeled by a function which is a nonlinear combination of the model parameters and depends on one or more independent variables...
software.
