Enzyme Kinetics : Behavior and Analysis of Rapid Equilibrium and Steady-State Enzyme Systems

Rating:
Summary: Encyclopaedic enzyme kinetics
Review: Irwin Segel wrote his book in 1974, but it was reprinted (without revision) in 1993 and remains available, still apparently selling steadily.

The main thing that will strike any reader coming to this book for the first time is that at nearly 1000 pages it is far longer than any of its competitors. Chapter 9, which gives a blow-by-blow account of all the multireactant mechanisms that the author could think of, accounts for 340 pages all by itself, making it considerably longer than Alejandro Marangoni's whole book "Enzyme Kinetics: a modern approach", also published by Wiley, but in 2003. The problem with this approach, it seems to me, is that nature does not provide examples of all the kinds of behaviour that Segel can think of, but does provide examples of some kinds of behaviour that he does not mention, such as kinetic cooperativity (i.e. cooperativity that cannot be attributed to interactions between two or more catalytic sites). For that reason, I think that any attempt to treat the subject in an encyclopaedic fashion must ultimately fail.

Experts in fast-reaction kinetics (which I am not) typically classify textbooks of enzyme kinetics into ones that treat fast reactions badly and ones that don't treat them at all. Segel's book comes into the latter category, and that is perhaps a virtue. For the first 942 pages one might think that he had made the same choice over statistical treatment of data, but then at the very end there are two pages that have all the apearance of an afterthought. Until then, all of the many figures either show no experimental points, or they show points that lie exactly on the lines they are supposed to fit. About the two-page Appendix itself, perhaps the less said the better.

Having said that, there is also plenty to like in Segel's book. If you need information on points that lend themselves to the encyclopaedic approach -- for example if you want to track down one of the many graphical methods for analysing kinetic data that appeared between 1950 and 1975 -- then this is the first and most convenient place to look.

Rating:
Summary: An honored place on my bookshelf.
Review: Segel's book is the ultimate in enzyme kinetics. I bought my first copy in 1978 and have probably used it 300 times since then. It deserves an honored place on every biochemists bookself.

Rating:
Summary: Enzyme Kinetics Bible
Review: This technical treasure is the bible of enzyme kinetics. Any enzyme mechanic or kineticist who has somehow missed this little tome does not know what they are missing. My copy is in tatters from freqent use and will have to be replaced soon...