Title: cooperativity
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - cooperativity
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.C01325
Status: current

Definition
Interaction between the substrate binding sites of an allosteric enzymes. Binding of a substrate molecule to one binding site changes the affinity of the binding sites on the other subunits (cf. allosteric enzymes) to the substrate by induction of a conformation change at the other binding sites. Cooperative enzymes typically display a sigmoid (S-shaped) plot of the reaction rate against substrate concentration.

Related Terms
- allosteric enzymes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/A00240
- binding site: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/B00649
- conformation: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01258
- enzymes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02159
- substrate: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/S06083

Source
- PAC, 1992, 64, 143. 'Glossary for chemists of terms used in biotechnology (IUPAC Recommendations 1992)' on page 151 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199264010143)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01325/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01325/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01325/xml

Citation: Citation: 'cooperativity' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.C01325
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Accessed: 2026-04-19T03:51:03+00:00