Kinetic behaviour of acid phosphatase-albumin co-polymers in homogeneous phase and under gel-immobilized conditions.

1. An analysis of the kinetic behaviour of immobilized acid phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.2) layers, gelled on the active surface of an ultrafiltration membrane, was carried out. 2. Two possible forms of such immobilized-enzyme systems were dealt with, namely enzyme-polyalbumin co-gelation through an ultrafiltration process, and enzyme co-polymerization to the same albumin polymers and subsequent gelation. 3. A preliminary analysis was also performed on both the corresponding homogeneous-phase (soluble systems to provide reference kinetics. 4. The main conclusions drawn are: (i) the enzyme-albumin co-polymers show a decrease in specific activity compared with the corresponding free enzyme in both soluble and immobilized forms; (ii) in the homogeneous phase a slight increase in the apparent Michaelis constant was measured for the co-polymerized enzyme compared with the free one, which suggests a decrease in affinity towards substrate; (iii) the activation energy in the immobilized phase is halved, compared with that in the homogeneous phase, which indicates that the combined mass-transfer/reaction step is rate-controlling.