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. 2005 Jul;89(1):76-9.
doi: 10.1529/biophysj.105.060194. Epub 2005 Apr 15.

An empirical extremum principle for the hill coefficient in ligand-protein interactions showing negative cooperativity

Hagai Abeliovich  1
Affiliations

An empirical extremum principle for the hill coefficient in ligand-protein interactions showing negative cooperativity

Hagai Abeliovich. Biophys J. 2005 Jul.

Abstract

The Hill coefficient (nH) is a central parameter in the study of ligand-protein interactions, which measures the degree of cooperativity between subunits that bind the ligand in multisubunit proteins. The most common usage of nH is as an estimate of the minimal number of interacting binding sites in positively cooperating systems. In the present study, a statistical interpretation of nH for a generalized system of multiple identical binding sites is developed. This interpretation is then applied to the derivation of an empirical extremum principle for nH in negatively cooperating systems of identical binding sites, which can be used for the estimation of the minimal number of interacting sites in such systems.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Graphic representation of nH versus 1/N for the interactions documented in Table 1. The diagonal line indicates the 1/N limiting value for nH.
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