Hanes–Woolf plot

is a graphical representation of enzyme kinetics in which the ratio of the initial substrate concentration

to the reaction velocity

It is based on the rearrangement of the Michaelis–Menten equation shown below: where

is the Michaelis constant and

B. S. Haldane stated, reiterating what he and K. G. Stern had written in their book,[2] that this rearrangement was due to Barnet Woolf.

[3] However, it was just one of three transformations introduced by Woolf.

It was first published by C. S. Hanes, though he did not use it as a plot.

[4] Hanes noted that the use of linear regression to determine kinetic parameters from this type of linear transformation generates the best fit between observed and calculated values of

[4]: 1415 Starting from the Michaelis–Menten equation: we can take reciprocals of both sides of the equation to obtain the equation underlying the Lineweaver–Burk plot: which can be multiplied on both sides by

to give Thus in the absence of experimental error data a plot of

yields a straight line of slope

Like other techniques that linearize the Michaelis–Menten equation, the Hanes–Woolf plot was used historically for rapid determination of the kinetic parameters

, but it has been largely superseded by nonlinear regression methods that are significantly more accurate and no longer computationally inaccessible.

It remains useful, however, as a means to present data graphically.