Solved – Comparing nonlinear regression coefficients from independent datasets

hypothesis testingnonlinear regressionregression coefficients

I performed enzyme kinetics experiments on a three independent preparations of an enzyme and produced the following three datasets which I separately fit to the Michaelis-Menten equation:

$$
V= \frac{V_{max} \times S}{K_m + S}
$$

I used R / nlme's nlsList function to do the fitting:

fit=nlsList(V~Vm*S/(Km+S)|prep,data=na.omit(kinetics),start=c(Vm=3.5,Km=50))

and I get some coefficient values that make sense and some reasonable predicted curves:

V versus S plot of 3 enzymes

how can I test for differences between the coefficients ($V_{max}$ and $K_m$) between the preparations? I think I can perform a t-test using the coefficient estimates and standard errors but I am not sure how.

Best Answer

The equation you are using is the Michaelis-Menten equation. In 1934 Lineweaver and Burk wrote a linear transform for this equation by taking the reciprocal of both sides or

1/v = 1/Vmax +Km/V*S

There are other linear transforms for the Michaelis Menten equation, See "Enzyme Kinetics" by Segel. Now it is usually preferable to do a linear transform when doing an analysis of of this sort. The R code is easier and you can simply use an analysis of variance to see if the slopes of your lines are equal. Also, when you do a linear transform, plot the lines. If they do not appear straight, then the system you are modeling is not strictly Michaelis-Menten. You have the wrong model.

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