Michaelis Menten in a nutshell.
Is that funny looking equation again (and really, this is one equation would be good to memorize. It is, as I said before, one of the most important equations in biology):
This equation tells us that for any substrate concentration, the rate of conversion will be some percentage of the maximum possible rate. And, the percentage increases steadily as you move from zero substrate to infinite substrate. Finally, no matter how much substrate you have, you actually never reach the theoretical maximum rate.
Km also tells you (roughly) how much "affinity" the enzyme has for the substrate. We say that a low Km indicates a high affinity, because only a little substrate is required to make the reaction happen at 1/2 of Vmax.
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