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 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 a ...

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

Biology

Cells

Labile

cell Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room, hut, or cave in which a religious recluse lives, alternatively the small precursor of a monastery w ...

s 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 subs ...

. 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 powe ...

, 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 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 p ...

) 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 phospho ...

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 olde ...

Chemistry

The term is used to describe a transient chemical species. 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 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