Variability of estimated binding parameters.
The standard deviation is often used as a measure of the accuracy or reliability of estimated binding parameters and this implies that the parameter values are normally distributed. This may not be the case and we show that the unknown distribution of acceptable parameter values associated with a specific model and a particular set of experimental data can be calculated easily. This can be done for any binding model, linear or non-linear, and the method is very robust and accurate. The effect of the magnitude of the experimental error and the distribution of data points on the variability of the parameters is readily investigated. This makes the method useful for the practical design of experiments in terms of the number and range of concentrations (or doses) which need to be studied in order to obtain the desired accuracy.