Talk:Lineweaver–Burk plot

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 27 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nstynka. Peer reviewers: Maskewmo, Cebeck, Mrothroc.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect diagram
The diagram shown does not correctly represent the properties of non-competitive inhibition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.181.234 (talk) 05:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC) The diagram is somewhat misleading. 'mixed' inhibition is not fully discussed in the text, but appears in the figure. 'uncompetitive' inhibition calls for a series of line with constant slope but different X&Y intercepts and does not appear in the figure. the uncompetitive inhibition page has an accurate diagram. Zqrrld (talk) 14:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * This is the discussion of the first requested move, filed on 21 April 2006. This changed "diagram" to "plot" in the title.

Proposing that this page be moved to Lineweaver-Burke plot. "Burke" is already the spelling in the article, and most other pages refer to this as a "plot". Isopropyl 06:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * support -- stillnotelf   is invisible  06:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 08:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Wrong spelling
Can this article please be renamed to Lineweaver-Burk plot?

Moving page...
Regarding the question of which spelling is correct, common usage appears to be "Lineweaver-Burk".


 * Lineweaver-Burke: 24,100 Google hits
 * Lineweaver-Burk: 183,000 Google hits

Moved to "Lineweaver-Burk plot" -- The Anome 12:43, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Question: who were Lineweaver and Burk? -- The Anome 12:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the Lineweaver-Burk equation is the inverse of the Michaelis-Menten equation, somewhat simplified. I know who Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten are, so Lineweaver and Burk are clearly just Michaelis and Menten standing on their heads, and not quite as smart. Meconium 14:54, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * In the days before numerical solving of enzymatic equations, everything had to be done by hand. Given several parameters, a Lineweaver-Burke plot was the easiest way to calculate for the others without analytically solving the differential equation, as Michaelis-Menten would require. Note that the Michaelis-Menten equation is just a simplified version of the Briggs-Haldane equation. Isopropyl 16:02, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Requested move, take 2

 * This is the discussion of the second requested move, filed on 30 April 2006.

Proposing that this page be (again) moved to Lineweaver-Burke plot. Following the first requested move discussion (see below), admin Nightstallion moved the article to the correct name. On 30 April, user The Anome moved the article to its current name, with the rationale that its misspelling garnered more Google hits.

Regardless of how many Google hits the incorrect spelling generates, it does not change the fact that "Burke" is the correct spelling. I've never seen an authoritative text on enzymatics that refers to "Burk", and a quick glance at a couple of my textbooks for classes reveals that they all refer to "Burke". The correct spelling is "Lineweaver-Burke", and if there is a common misspelling, that's what redirects are for. We should not be propagating error by continuing to use an incorrect title. Isopropyl 16:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the on-line version of a standard Biochemistry textbook (Biochemistry, 5th edition; Berg, Tymoczko, Stryer) and found the term presented as 'Lineweaver-Burk'. See links from a query against the NCBI Bookshelf. User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:03, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I have "Burke" in "Biological Kinetics" by Wittrup & Tidor. Interestingly, many Google results turn up both terms within the same page, which is confusing. Isopropyl 18:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I've seen "Burke" used almost exclusively in most biochem textbooks (with Lehninger being a notable exception), but it appears that "Burk" is in fact correct. The original 1934 paper uses "Burk", along with another paper from 1933 and an essay in his memory written by a colleague (obviously not authoritative, but chances are that one who knew him well would have spelled his name correctly). That's enough to convince me. --David Iberri (talk) 18:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Enough to convince me as well. How did the gentleman's name manage to get mangled over time, then? And how did reputable texts such as those studied in biochem courses make the mistake as well? Surely there has to be a reason. Isopropyl 18:52, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Simple &mdash; a presumption of correct usage based on precedent without recourse to facts. It happens all the time.  P.S. Stryer, the textbook I pointed out above, could be counted as reputable alongside the others mentioned; I used an earlier edition as an undergraduate studying biochemistry. User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 23:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Accordingly I have removed the move template. Thanks for clarifying this! &mdash; Nightst a  llion  (?) Seen this already? 09:54, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
 * In case this issue crops up again & further evidence is needed: Irwin Segel's 'Enzyme Kinetics' (Wiley, 1993) also refers to the Lineweaver-Burk plot in chapter 2.Athenray (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Use for estimation of parameters
Well, I found it straightforward to directly fit Michaelis-Menten equations to my data at different inhibitor concentrations and then plot these parameters vs inhibitor concentration. Fitting straight lines to 1/vmax and km gives the type and degree of inhibition.

When I had to justify this to my promoter, and explain why I wasn't using Lineweaver Burk, I took a look at the literature, and I see a grave preponderance of LB plots in articles on inhibition. Sad but true, so I've changed the text here. I'm sure we're a bit ahead of the curve here (pun intended).

By the way, for an example of blatantly fitting a competitive model onto mixed data, see Acan and Tezcan (1995) in Biochemical and Molecular Medicine 54, 33-37. It might have been a bit more obvious if they'd plotted the Michaelis-Menten parameters vs inhibitor concentration instead of using an LB plot. --Slashme 01:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)


 * People often use the LWB for data presentation, while using non-linear regression for fitting the actual data. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:35, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Inaccurate image under 'Use' section
The image titled Enzyme Inhibition displayed using Lineweaver-Burk (double reciprocal plots) under the Use section does not accurately display noncompetitive (mixed) inhibition. Both Km and Vmax should be affected (Km is reduced) as noncompetitive inhibition is a mix of competitive and uncompetitive inhibition and has the effects of both. 9/7/2019 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.27.154.28 (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I have made some big changes to the applications section and some minor edits to other sections. I also added a new section to define terms, so that they did not need to keep being defined in each section. The references have also been somewhat updated. Nstynka (talk) 13:10, 18 March 2021 (UTC)