A measure of the average cooperativity of a binding system

A new measure of the average cooperativity of a binding system is suggested. Existing measures, suggested earlier by Wyman, and by Minton and Saroff, do not adequately account for all types of cooperativities in systems with more than two binding sites. The newly suggested measure captures the average cooperativity at any stage of the binding process. It is shown that this average can change dramatically, even its sign, during the span of a binding process.