Slowly Reverting Enzyme Inactivation: a Mechanism for Generating Long-lived Damped Oscillations

Single-enzyme systems can undergo weakly damped concentration oscillations if the enzyme can be converted to an inactive form which only slowly reverts to the active form. Inactivation can take many forms, including a simple (hysteretic) conformational change of the enzyme. This observation may provide an explanation for the damped oscillations seen in photosynthetic activity following a sudden disturbance since rubisco, the enzyme responsible for fixing carbon, is a hysteretic enzyme with appropriate kinetic constants for oscillation.