Lability refers to something that is constantly undergoing change or is likely to undergo change.

Biochemistry

In reference to

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

, this is an important concept as far as

kinetics Kinetics ( grc, κίνησις, , kinesis, ''movement'' or ''to move'') may refer to: Science and medicine * Kinetics (physics), the study of motion and its causes ** Rigid body kinetics, the study of the motion of rigid bodies * Chemical kin ...

is concerned in

metalloprotein Metalloprotein is a generic term for a protein that contains a metal ion cofactor. A large proportion of all proteins are part of this category. For instance, at least 1000 human proteins (out of ~20,000) contain zinc-binding protein domains al ...

s. This can allow for the rapid synthesis and degradation of substrates in biological systems.

Biology

Cells

Labile cells refer to cells that constantly divide by entering and remaining in the

cell cycle The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell that cause it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and some of its organelles, and sub ...

. These are contrasted with "stable cells" and "permanent cells". An important example of this is in the

epithelium Epithelium or epithelial tissue is one of the four basic types of animal tissue, along with connective tissue, muscle tissue and nervous tissue. It is a thin, continuous, protective layer of compactly packed cells with a little intercellul ...

of the

cornea The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and lens, the cornea refracts light, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical ...

, where cells divide at the basal level and move upwards, and the topmost cells die and fall off.

Proteins

In medicine, the term "labile" means susceptible to alteration or destruction. For example, a heat-labile

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

is one that can be changed or destroyed at high temperatures. The opposite of labile in this context is "stable".

Soils

Compounds or materials that are easily transformed (often by

biological activity In pharmacology, biological activity or pharmacological activity describes the beneficial or adverse effects of a drug on living matter. When a drug is a complex chemical mixture, this activity is exerted by the substance's active ingredient or ...

) are termed labile. For example, labile

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phosph ...

is that fraction of soil phosphate that is readily transformed into soluble or plant-available phosphate. Labile organic matter is the

soil organic matter Soil organic matter (SOM) is the organic matter component of soil, consisting of plant and animal detritus at various stages of decomposition, cells and tissues of soil microbes, and substances that soil microbes synthesize. SOM provides numerous b ...

that is easily decomposed by

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in old ...

Chemistry

The term is used to describe a transient

chemical species A chemical species is a chemical substance or ensemble composed of chemically identical molecular entities that can explore the same set of molecular energy levels on a characteristic or delineated time scale. These energy levels determine the wa ...

. As a general example, if a molecule exists in a particular conformation for a short lifetime, before adopting a lower energy conformation (structural arrangement), the former molecular structure is said to have 'high lability' (such as C₂₅, a 25-carbon

fullerene A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecule consists of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecule may be a hollow sphere, ...

spheroid). The term is sometimes also used in reference to reactivity – for example, a complex that quickly reaches equilibrium in

solution Solution may refer to: * Solution (chemistry), a mixture where one substance is dissolved in another * Solution (equation), in mathematics ** Numerical solution, in numerical analysis, approximate solutions within specified error bounds * Solutio ...

is said to be labile (with respect to that solution). Another common example is the ''cis'' effect in organometallic chemistry, which is the labilization of CO ligands in the ''cis'' position of octahedral transition metal complexes.

References

Chemical reactions {{biochem-stub