All of the derivations given treat the initial binding step in terms of the law of mass action, which assumes free diffusion through the solution. However, in the environment of a living cell where there is a high concentration of proteins, the cytoplasm often behaves more like a viscous gel than a free-flowing liquid, limiting molecular movements by diffusion and altering reaction rates. Note, however that although this gel-like structure severely restricts large molecules like proteins its effect on small molecules, like many of the metabolites that participate in central metabolism, is very much smaller. In practice, therefore, treating the movement of substrates in terms of diffusion is not likely to produce major errors. Nonetheless, Schnell and Turner consider that is more appropriate to model the cytoplasm as a fractal, in order to capture its limited-mobility kinetics.