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Michaelis-Menten is dead, long live Michaelis-Menten!

Modern single-molecule tools, when applied to enzymes, challenge fundamental concepts of catalysis by uncovering mechanistic pathways, intermediates and heterogeneities hidden in the ensemble average. It is thus reassuring that the Michaelis-Menten formalism, a pillar of enzymology, is upheld, if reinterpreted, even when visualizing single turnover events with a microscope focus.

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Figure 1: Focusing in on the hyperbolic Michaelis-Menten relationship between enzymatic rate and substrate concentration under multiple-turnover conditions2.

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Walter, N. Michaelis-Menten is dead, long live Michaelis-Menten!. Nat Chem Biol 2, 66–67 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio0206-66

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