Binding site
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In biochemistry, a binding site is a region on a protein, DNA, or RNA to which specific other molecules and ions — in this context collectively called ligands, or more specifically, protein ligands — form a chemical bond.
The term saturation refers to the fraction of total binding sites that are occupied at any given time.
When more than one type of ligand can bind to a binding site, competition ensues.
An equilibrium exists between unbound ligands and bound ligands.
Binding sites also exhibit chemical specificity, a measure of the types of ligands that will bond, and affinity, which is a measure of the strength of the chemical bond.
A more specific type of binding site is the transcription factor binding site, present on DNA.
[edit] See also
Active site - Binding site - Catalytically perfect enzyme - Coenzyme - Cofactor - EC number - Enzyme catalysis - Enzyme kinetics - Enzyme inhibitor - Lineweaver-Burk plot - Michaelis-Menten kinetics
EC1 Oxidoreductases,O+R+D/list (alcohol oxidoreductases, CH-CH oxidoreductases, peroxidase, oxygenase) - EC2 Transferases/list (methyltransferase, acyltransferase, glycosyltransferase, transaminase, phosphotransferase, polymerase, kinase) - EC3 Hydrolases/list (esterase, DNA glycosylases, glycosidase, protease, acid anhydride hydrolases) - EC4 Lyases/list (carboxy-lyases, aldolase, dehydratase, synthase, adenylate cyclase, guanylate cyclase) - EC5 Isomerases/list (mutase, topoisomerase) - EC6 Ligases/list (DNA ligase, aminoacyl tRNA synthetase)