inducibilityn.

1953 Cohn et al. in Nature 12 Dec. 1096/2 Thus ‘constitutivity’ and ‘inducibility’ are properties of enzyme-forming systems, not of enzymes per se, and can be used as significant expressions only in a biological frame of reference, not in a chemical one. It should be stressed that the notions of constitutivity and inducibility are relative, not absolute; in any given biological system, a certain fraction of a particular enzyme-forming capacity may be constitutive, the remaining fraction inducible. For the sake of convenience, one may wish to refer to ‘an induced enzyme’ or to ‘a constitutive enzyme’; but it should always be kept in mind that these are shorthand expressions for ‘an enzyme the formation of which is largely or entirely inducible (or constitutive) in the particular organism concerned’.

1959 Jrnl. Molecular Biol. 1 165 (heading) The genetic control and cytoplasmic expression of ‘inducibility’ in the synthesis of β-galactosidase by E. coli.

1965 M. Deutsch in B. B. Wolman Scientific Psychol. 513 Inducibility provides the basis for normative control of individual behavior in the cooperative situation.

1972 Science 20 Oct. 315/2 The inducibility of [the enzyme system] AHH shows genetic variation in the mouse.