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Enzyme inhibitor

 

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Enzyme inhibitor



 
 
Enzyme inhibitors are molecule
Molecule

In chemistry, a molecule is defined as a sufficiently stable, electric charge neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by very strong chemical bonds....
s that bind to enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
s and decrease their activity. Since blocking an enzyme's activity can kill a pathogen
Pathogen

A pathogen , infectious agent, or germ, is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its Host .There are several substrates and pathways whereby pathogens can invade a host; the principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil contamination has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring...
 or correct a metabolic
Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms in order to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments....
 imbalance, many drugs are enzyme inhibitors. They are also used as herbicide
Herbicide

A herbicide is used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant hormones....
s and pesticide
Pesticide

A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest .A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest ....
s.






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Hiv Protesase With Bound Ritonavir
Enzyme inhibitors are molecule
Molecule

In chemistry, a molecule is defined as a sufficiently stable, electric charge neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by very strong chemical bonds....
s that bind to enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
s and decrease their activity. Since blocking an enzyme's activity can kill a pathogen
Pathogen

A pathogen , infectious agent, or germ, is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its Host .There are several substrates and pathways whereby pathogens can invade a host; the principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil contamination has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring...
 or correct a metabolic
Metabolism

Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms in order to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments....
 imbalance, many drugs are enzyme inhibitors. They are also used as herbicide
Herbicide

A herbicide is used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant hormones....
s and pesticide
Pesticide

A pesticide is a substance or mixture of substances used to kill a pest .A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest ....
s. Not all molecules that bind to enzymes are inhibitors; enzyme activator
Enzyme activator

Enzyme activators are molecules that bind to enzymes and increase their activity. These molecules are often involved in the allosteric regulation of enzymes in the control of metabolism....
s
bind to enzymes and increase their enzymatic activity
Enzyme assay

Enzyme assays are laboratory methods for measuring enzyme activity. They are vital for the study of enzyme kinetics and enzyme inhibitor....
.

The binding of an inhibitor can stop a substrate
Substrate (biochemistry)

In biochemistry, a substrate is a molecule upon which an enzyme acts. Enzymes catalysis chemical reactions involving the substrate. The substrate binds with the enzyme active site, and an enzyme-substrate complex is formed....
 from entering the enzyme's active site
Active site

The active site of an enzyme contains the catalysis and binding sites. The structure and chemical properties of the active site allow the recognition and binding of the substrate ....
 and/or hinder the enzyme from catalysing
Catalysis

Catalysis is the process in which the reaction rate of a chemical reaction is either increased or decreased by means of a chemical substance known as a catalyst....
 its reaction. Inhibitor binding is either reversible
Reversible reaction

A reversible reaction is a chemical reaction that results in an chemical equilibrium mixture of reactants and Product . For a reaction involving two reactants and two products this can be expressed symbolically asA and B can react to form C and D or, in the reverse reaction, C and D can react to form A and B....
 or irreversible. Irreversible inhibitors usually react with the enzyme and change it chemically. These inhibitors modify key amino acid
Amino acid

In chemistry, an amino acid is a molecule containing both amine and carboxyl functional groups. These molecules are particularly important in biochemistry, where this term refers to alpha-amino acids with the general formula H2NCHRCOOH, where R is an organic substituent....
 residues needed for enzymatic activity. In contrast, reversible inhibitors bind non-covalently
Ligand (biochemistry)

In biochemistry, a ligand is a Chemical substance that is able to bind to and form a Complex with a biomolecule to serve a biological purpose....
 and different types of inhibition are produced depending on whether these inhibitors bind the enzyme
Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
, the enzyme-substrate complex, or both.

Many drug molecules
Medication

A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine or medicament, can be loosely defined as any substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease....
 are enzyme inhibitors, so their discovery and improvement is an active area of research in biochemistry
Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry processes in living organisms. It deals with the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules....
 and pharmacology
Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the study of drug action. More specifically it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and exogenous chemicals that alter normal biochemical function....
. A medicinal enzyme inhibitor is often judged by its specificity (its lack of binding to other proteins) and its potency (its dissociation constant
Dissociation constant

In chemistry and biochemistry, a dissociation constant is a specific type of equilibrium constant that measures the propensity of a larger object to separate reversibly into smaller components, as...
, which indicates the concentration needed to inhibit the enzyme). A high specificity and potency ensure that a drug will have few side effects
Adverse drug reaction

An adverse drug reaction or adverse drug event is an expression that describes the unwanted, negative consequences associated with the use of given medications....
 and thus low toxicity
Toxicity

Toxicity is the degree to which a substance is able to damage an exposed organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a substructure of the organism, such as a cell or an organ , such as the liver ....
.

Enzyme inhibitors also occur naturally and are involved in the regulation of metabolism. For example, enzymes in a metabolic pathway
Metabolic pathway

In biochemistry, a metabolic pathway is a series of chemistry reactions occurring within a cell . In each pathway, a principal chemical is modified by chemical reactions....
 can be inhibited by downstream products. This type of negative feedback
Negative feedback

Negative feedback feeds part of a system's output, inverted, into the system's input; generally with the result that fluctuations are attenuated....
 slows flux through a pathway when the products begin to build up and is an important way to maintain homeostasis
Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the property of a system, either open system or closed system, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition....
 in a cell
Cell (biology)

The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known Life organisms. It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is often called the building bricks of life....
. Other cellular enzyme inhibitors are protein
Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
s that specifically bind to and inhibit an enzyme target. This can help control enzymes that may be damaging to a cell, such as protease
Protease

A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain, which form a molecule of protein....
s or nuclease
Nuclease

A nuclease is an enzyme capable of cleaving the phosphodiester bonds between the nucleotide subunits of nucleic acids. Older papers may use terms such as "polynucleotidase" or "nucleodepolymerase"....
s; a well-characterised example is the ribonuclease inhibitor
Ribonuclease inhibitor

Ribonuclease inhibitor is a large , acidic , leucine-rich repeat protein that forms extremely tight complexes with certain ribonucleases. It is a major cellular protein, comprising ~0.1% of all cellular protein by weight, and appears to play an important role in regulating the lifetime of RNA....
, which binds to ribonuclease
Ribonuclease

Ribonuclease is a type of nuclease that catalysis the degradation of RNA into smaller components. Ribonucleases can be divided into endoribonucleases and exoribonucleases, and comprise several sub-classes within the EC 2.7 and 3.1 classes of enzymes....
s in one of the tightest known protein–protein interaction
Protein-protein interaction

Protein-protein interactions involve the association of protein molecules. These associations are studied from the perspective of biochemistry, signal transduction and graph theory....
s. Natural enzyme inhibitors can also be poisons and are used as defenses against predators or as ways of killing prey.

Reversible inhibitors


Types of reversible inhibitor

Reversible inhibitors bind to enzymes with non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bond
Hydrogen bond

A hydrogen bond is the attractive force between one electronegative atom and a hydrogen covalently bonded to another electronegative atom. It results from a dipole-dipole force with a hydrogen atom bonded to nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine ....
s, hydrophobic interactions and ionic bond
Ionic bond

An ionic bond is a type of chemical bond that involves a metal and a non-metal ions through electrostatic attraction. In short, it is a bond formed by the attraction between two oppositely charged ions....
s. Multiple weak bonds between the inhibitor and the active site combine to produce strong and specific binding. In contrast to substrate
Substrate (biochemistry)

In biochemistry, a substrate is a molecule upon which an enzyme acts. Enzymes catalysis chemical reactions involving the substrate. The substrate binds with the enzyme active site, and an enzyme-substrate complex is formed....
s and irreversible inhibitors, reversible inhibitors generally do not undergo chemical reactions when bound to the enzyme and can be easily removed by dilution or dialysis.

There are four kinds of reversible enzyme inhibitors. They are classified according to the effect of varying the concentration of the enzyme's substrate on the inhibitor.

  • In competitive inhibition
    Competitive inhibition

    Competitive inhibition is a form of enzyme inhibitor where binding of the inhibitor to the enzyme prevents binding of the substrate and vice versa....
    , the substrate and inhibitor cannot bind to the enzyme at the same time, as shown in the figure on the left. This usually results from the inhibitor having an affinity for the active site
    Active site

    The active site of an enzyme contains the catalysis and binding sites. The structure and chemical properties of the active site allow the recognition and binding of the substrate ....
     of an enzyme where the substrate also binds; the substrate and inhibitor compete for access to the enzyme's active site. This type of inhibition can be overcome by sufficiently high concentrations of substrate, i.e., by out-competing the inhibitor. Competitive inhibitors are often similar in structure to the real substrate (see examples below).


  • In uncompetitive inhibition, the inhibitor binds only to the substrate-enzyme complex, it should not be confused with non-competative inhibitors. Both maximum velocity (Vmax) and binding efficiency (Km) decrease.


  • In mixed inhibition
    Mixed inhibition

    Mixed inhibition refers to a combination of two different types of reversible enzyme inhibition ? competitive inhibition and uncompetitive inhibition....
    , the inhibitor can bind to the enzyme at the same time as the enzyme's substrate. However, the binding of the inhibitor affects the binding of the substrate, and vice versa. This type of inhibition can be reduced, but not overcome by increasing concentrations of substrate. Although it is possible for mixed-type inhibitors to bind in the active site, this type of inhibition generally results from an allosteric effect where the inhibitor binds to a different site on an enzyme. Inhibitor binding to this allosteric site changes the conformation
    Conformational isomerism

    In chemistry, conformational isomerism is a form of stereoisomerism in which molecules with the same structural formula exist as different conformational isomers or conformers in 3-D due to rotations about one or more sigma bond....
     (i.e., tertiary structure
    Tertiary structure

    In biochemistry and chemistry, the tertiary structure of a protein or any other macromolecule is its three-dimensional structure, as defined by the atomic coordinates....
     or three-dimensional shape) of the enzyme so that the affinity of the substrate for the active site is reduced.


  • Non-competitive inhibition
    Non-competitive inhibition

    Non-competitive inhibition is a type of Enzyme inhibitor that reduces the Chemical kinetics of a chemical reaction without changing the apparent binding Dissociation constant#Protein-Ligand binding of the catalysis for the Substrate ....
     is a form of mixed inhibition where the binding of the inhibitor to the enzyme reduces its activity but does not affect the binding of substrate. As a result, the extent of inhibition depends only on the concentration of the inhibitor.


Quantitative description of reversible inhibition

Reversible inhibition can be described quantitatively in terms of the inhibitor's binding
Dissociation constant

In chemistry and biochemistry, a dissociation constant is a specific type of equilibrium constant that measures the propensity of a larger object to separate reversibly into smaller components, as...
 to the enzyme and to the enzyme–substrate complex, and its effects on the kinetic constants
Enzyme kinetics

Enzyme kinetics is the study of the chemical reactions that are catalyst by enzymes, with a focus on their reaction rates. The study of an enzyme's chemical kinetics reveals the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled, and how a drug or a poison might enzyme inhibitor the enzyme....
 of the enzyme. In the classic Michaelis–Menten scheme
Michaelis-Menten kinetics

File:Michaelis-Menten.pngMichaelis?Menten kinetics approximately describes the enzyme kinetics of many enzymes. It is named after Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten....
 below, an enzyme (E) binds to its substrate (S) to form the enzyme–substrate complex ES. Upon catalysis, this complex breaks down to release product P and free enzyme. The inhibitor (I) can bind to either E or ES with the dissociation constant
Dissociation constant

In chemistry and biochemistry, a dissociation constant is a specific type of equilibrium constant that measures the propensity of a larger object to separate reversibly into smaller components, as...
s Ki or Ki', respectively.
  • Competitive inhibitors can bind to E, but not to ES. Competitive inhibition increases Km (i.e., the inhibitor interferes with substrate binding), but does not affect Vmax (the inhibitor does not hamper catalysis in ES because it cannot bind to ES).


  • Non-competitive inhibitors have identical affinities for E and ES (Ki = Ki'). Non-competitive inhibition does not change Km (i.e., it does not affect substrate binding) but decreases Vmax (i.e., inhibitor binding hampers catalysis).


  • Mixed-type inhibitors bind to both E and ES, but their affinities for these two forms of the enzyme are different (Ki ? Ki'). Thus, mixed-type inhibitors interfere with substrate binding (increase Km) and hamper catalysis in the ES complex (decrease Vmax).
Reversible Inhibition
When an enzyme has multiple substrates, inhibitors can show different types of inhibition depending on which substrate is considered. This results from the active site containing two different binding sites within the active site, one for each substrate. For example, an inhibitor might compete with substrate A for the first binding site, but be a non-competitive inhibitor with respect to substrate B in the second binding site.

Measuring the dissociation constants of a reversible inhibitor

Inhibition Diagrams
As noted above, an enzyme inhibitor is characterized by its two dissociation constant
Dissociation constant

In chemistry and biochemistry, a dissociation constant is a specific type of equilibrium constant that measures the propensity of a larger object to separate reversibly into smaller components, as...
s, Ki and Ki', to the enzyme and to the enzyme-substrate complex, respectively. The enzyme-inhibitor constant Ki can be measured directly by various methods; one extremely accurate method is isothermal titration calorimetry
Isothermal Titration Calorimetry

Isothermal titration calorimetry is a biophysics technique used to determine the thermodynamics parameters of interactions. It is most often used to study the binding of small molecules to larger macromolecules ....
, in which the inhibitor is titrated into a solution of enzyme and the heat released or absorbed is measured. However, the other dissociation constant Ki' is difficult to measure directly, since the enzyme-substrate complex is short-lived and undergoing a chemical reaction to form the product. Hence, Ki' is usually measured indirectly, by observing the enzyme activity under various substrate and inhibitor concentrations, and fitting
Nonlinear regression

In statistics, nonlinear regression is a form of regression analysis in which observational data are modeled by a function which is a nonlinear combination of the model parameters and depends on one or more independent variables....
 the data to a modified Michaelis–Menten equation
Enzyme kinetics

Enzyme kinetics is the study of the chemical reactions that are catalyst by enzymes, with a focus on their reaction rates. The study of an enzyme's chemical kinetics reveals the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled, and how a drug or a poison might enzyme inhibitor the enzyme....


where the modifying factors a and a' are defined by the inhibitor concentration and its two dissociation constants

Thus, in the presence of the inhibitor, the enzyme's effective Km and Vmax become (a/a')Km and (1/a')Vmax, respectively. However, the modified Michaelis-Menten equation assumes that binding of the inhibitor to the enzyme has reached equilibrium, which may be a very slow process for inhibitors with sub-nanomolar dissociation constants. In these cases, it is usually more practical to treat the tight-binding inhibitor as an irreversible inhibitor (see below); however, it can still be possible to estimate Ki' kinetically if Ki is measured independently.

The effects of different types of reversible enzyme inhibitors on enzymatic activity can be visualized using graphical representations of the Michaelis–Menten equation, such as Lineweaver–Burk and Eadie-Hofstee plots
Eadie-Hofstee diagram

In biochemistry, an Eadie-Hofstee diagram is a graphical representation of enzyme kinetics in which reaction velocity is plotted as a Function of the velocity vs....
. For example, in the Lineweaver–Burk plots at the right, the competitive inhibition lines intersect on the y-axis, illustrating that such inhibitors do not affect Vmax. Similarly, the non-competitive inhibition lines intersect on the x-axis, showing these inhibitors do not affect Km. However, it can be difficult to estimate Ki and Ki' accurately from such plots, so it is advisable to estimate these constants using more reliable nonlinear regression
Nonlinear regression

In statistics, nonlinear regression is a form of regression analysis in which observational data are modeled by a function which is a nonlinear combination of the model parameters and depends on one or more independent variables....
 methods, as described above.

Special cases

  • The mechanism of partially competitive inhibition is similar to that of non-competitive, except that the EIS complex has catalytic activity, which may be lower or even higher (partially competitive activation) than that of the enzyme–substrate (ES) complex. This inhibition typically displays a lower Vmax, but an unaffected Km value.


  • Uncompetitive inhibition occurs when the inhibitor binds only to the enzyme–substrate complex, not to the free enzyme; the EIS complex is catalytically inactive. This mode of inhibition is rare and causes a decrease in both Vmax and the Km value.


  • Substrate and product inhibition is where either the substrate or product of an enzyme reaction inhibit the enzyme's activity. This inhibition may follow the competitive, uncompetitive or mixed patterns. In substrate inhibition there is a progressive decrease in activity at high substrate concentrations. This may indicate the existence of two substrate-binding sites in the enzyme. At low substrate, the high-affinity site is occupied and normal kinetics
    Enzyme kinetics

    Enzyme kinetics is the study of the chemical reactions that are catalyst by enzymes, with a focus on their reaction rates. The study of an enzyme's chemical kinetics reveals the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme, its role in metabolism, how its activity is controlled, and how a drug or a poison might enzyme inhibitor the enzyme....
     are followed. However, at higher concentrations, the second inhibitory site becomes occupied, inhibiting the enzyme. Product inhibition is often a regulatory feature in metabolism
    Metabolism

    Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur in living organisms in order to maintain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments....
     and can be a form of negative feedback
    Negative feedback

    Negative feedback feeds part of a system's output, inverted, into the system's input; generally with the result that fluctuations are attenuated....
    .


  • Slow-tight inhibition occurs when the initial enzyme–inhibitor complex EI undergoes isomerisation to a second more tightly held complex, EI*, but the overall inhibition process is reversible. This manifests itself as slowly increasing enzyme inhibition. Under these conditions, traditional Michaelis–Menten kinetics give a false value for Ki, which is time–dependent. The true value of Ki can be obtained through more complex analysis of the on (kon) and off (koff) rate constants for inhibitor association. See irreversible inhibition below for more information.


Examples of reversible inhibitors

Ritonavir
As enzymes have evolved to bind their substrates tightly, and most reversible inhibitors bind in the active site of enzymes, it is unsurprising that some of these inhibitors are strikingly similar in structure to the substrates of their targets. An example of these substrate mimics are the protease inhibitors
Protease inhibitor (pharmacology)

Protease inhibitors are a class of medications used to treat or prevent infection by viruses, including HIV and Hepatitis C. PIs prevents viral replication by inhibiting the activity of HIV-1 protease, an enzyme used by the viruses to cleave nascent proteins for final assembly of new virons....
, a very successful class of antiretroviral drug
Antiretroviral drug

Antiretroviral drugs are medications for the treatment of infection by retroviruses, primarily HIV. When several such drugs, typically three or four, are taken in combination, the approach is known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART....
s used to treat HIV
HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that can lead to AIDS , a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to life-threatening opportunistic infections....
. The structure of ritonavir
Ritonavir

Ritonavir, with trade name Norvir , is an antiretroviral drug from the protease inhibitor class used to treat HIV infection and AIDS.Ritonavir is frequently prescribed with HAART, not for its antiviral action, but as it inhibits the same host enzyme that metabolizes other protease inhibitors....
, a protease inhibitor based on a peptide and containing three peptide bond
Peptide bond

A peptide bond is a chemical bond formed between two molecules when the carboxyl group of one molecule reacts with the amine group of the other molecule, thereby releasing a molecule of water ....
s, is shown on the right. As this drug resembles the protein that is the substrate of the HIV protease, it competes with this substrate in the enzyme's active site.

Enzyme inhibitors are often designed to mimic the transition state
Transition state

The transition state of a chemical reaction is a particular configuration along the reaction coordinate. It is defined as the state corresponding to the highest energy along this reaction coordinate....
 or intermediate of an enzyme-catalysed reaction. This ensures that the inhibitor exploits the transition state stabilising effect of the enzyme, resulting in a better binding affinity (lower Ki) than substrate-based designs. An example of such a transition state inhibitor is the antiviral drug oseltamivir
Oseltamivir

Oseltamivir is an antiviral drug that is used in the treatment and prophylaxis of both Influenzavirus A and Influenzavirus B. Like zanamivir, oseltamivir is a neuraminidase inhibitor....
; this drug mimics the planar nature of the ring oxonium ion
Oxonium ion

The oxonium ion in chemistry is any positive oxygen cation, which has three chemical bond. The simplest oxonium ion is the hydronium ion H3O+....
 in the reaction of the viral enzyme neuraminidase
Neuraminidase

Neuraminidase enzymes are glycoside hydrolase enzymes which cleave the glycosidic linkages of neuraminic acid. Neuraminidase enzymes are a large family, found in a range of organisms....
.

However, not all inhibitors are based on the structures of substrates. For example, the structure of another HIV protease inhibitor tipranavir
Tipranavir

Tipranavir, or tipranavir disodium, is a nonpeptidic Protease inhibitor manufactured by Boehringer-Ingelheim under the trade name Aptivus....
 is shown on the left. This molecule is not based on a peptide and has no obvious structural similarity to a protein substrate. These non-peptide inhibitors can be more stable than inhibitors containing peptide bonds, because they will not be substrates for peptidases and are less likely to be degraded.

In drug design it is important to consider the concentrations of substrates to which the target enzymes are exposed. For example, some protein kinase
Protein kinase

A protein kinase is a kinase enzyme that modifies other proteins by chemically adding phosphate groups to them . Phosphorylation usually results in a functional change of the target protein by changing enzyme catalysis, cellular location, or association with other proteins....
 inhibitors have chemical structures that are similar to adenosine triphosphate
Adenosine triphosphate

This article is about the chemical used by cells as an energy carrier. For other uses, see ATP .Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide, and plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme that is the "molecule unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer....
, one of the substrates of these enzymes. However, drugs that are simple competitive inhibitors will have to compete with the high concentrations of ATP in the cell. Protein kinases can also be inhibited by competition at the binding sites where the kinases interact with their substrate proteins, and most proteins are present inside cells at concentrations much lower than the concentration of ATP. As a consequence, if two protein kinase inhibitors both bind in the active site with similar affinity, but only one has to compete with ATP, then the competitive inhibitor at the protein-binding site will inhibit the enzyme more effectively.

Irreversible inhibitors


Types of irreversible inhibition

Dif Reaction
Irreversible inhibitors usually covalently modify an enzyme, and inhibition cannot therefore be reversed. Irreversible inhibitors often contain reactive functional groups such as nitrogen mustard
Nitrogen mustard

The nitrogen mustards are cytotoxic chemotherapy agents similar to mustard gas. Although their common use is medicinal, in principle these compounds may also be used for chemical warfare purposes....
s, aldehyde
Aldehyde

An aldehyde is an organic compound containing a terminal carbonyl group. This functional group, which consists of a carbon atom bonded to a hydrogen atom and double bond to an oxygen atom , is called the aldehyde group....
s, haloalkane
Haloalkane

The haloalkanes are a group of chemical compounds, consisting of alkanes, such as methane or ethane, with one or more halogens linked, such as chlorine or fluorine, making them a type of organic halide....
s, alkene
Alkene

In organic chemistry, an alkene, olefin, or olefine is an Saturation chemical compound containing at least one carbon-to-carbon double bond....
s, Michael acceptors, phenyl sulphonates, or fluorophosphonate
Methoxy arachidonyl fluorophosphonate

Methoxy arachidonyl fluorophosphonate, commonly referred as MAFP, is an irreversible active site-directed enzyme inhibitor that inhibits nearly all serine hydrolases and serine proteases ....
s. These electrophilic
Electrophile

In chemistry, an electrophile is a reagent attracted to electrons that participates in a chemical reaction by accepting an electron pair in order to Chemical bond to a nucleophile....
 groups react with amino acid side chains to form covalent adducts. The residues modified are those with side chains containing nucleophile
Nucleophile

In chemistry, a nucleophile is a reagent that forms a chemical bond to its reaction partner by donating both bonding electrons. Because nucleophiles donate electrons, they are by definition Lewis bases ....
s such as hydroxyl
Hydroxyl

Hydroxyl in chemistry stands for a molecule consisting of an oxygen atom and a hydrogen atom connected by a covalent bond. The neutral form is a hydroxyl Radical and the hydroxyl anion is called a hydroxide....
 or sulfhydryl
Thiol

In organic chemistry, a thiol is a compound that contains the functional group composed of a sulfur atom and a hydrogen atom . Being the sulfur analogue of an alcohol group , this functional group is referred to either as a thiol group or a sulfhydryl group....
 groups; these include the amino acids serine
Serine

Serine is an organic compound with the chemical formula hydrogenoxygen2carbonCHCH2OH....
 (as in DFP
Diisopropylfluorophosphate

Diisopropyl fluorophosphate is an oily, colorless liquid with the chemical formula C6H14FO3P. It is used in medicine and as an organophosphate insecticide....
, right), cysteine
Cysteine

Cysteine is an a-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCH2SH. It is a non-essential amino acid, which means that humans can synthesize it....
, threonine
Threonine

Threonine is an a-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCHCH3. Its codons are ACU, ACA, ACC, and ACG. This essential amino acid is classified as Chemical polarity....
 or tyrosine
Tyrosine

Tyrosine or 4-hydroxyphenylalanine, is one of the 20 amino acids that are used by cell to protein biosynthesis proteins. This is a non-essential amino acid and it is found in casein....
.

Irreversible inhibition is different from irreversible enzyme inactivation. Irreversible inhibitors are generally specific for one class of enzyme and do not inactivate all proteins; they do not function by destroying protein structure
Protein structure

Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such chemical element as carbon,hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur....
 but by specifically altering the active site of their target. For example, extremes of pH or temperature usually cause denaturation
Denaturation (biochemistry)

Denaturation is a process in which proteins or nucleic acids lose their structure by application of some external stress or compound for example, treatment of proteins with strong acids or bases, high concentrations of inorganic salts, organic compound solvents , or heat....
 of all protein structure
Protein structure

Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such chemical element as carbon,hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur....
, but this is a non-specific effect. Similarly, some non-specific chemical treatments destroy protein structure: for example, heating in concentrated hydrochloric acid
Hydrochloric acid

Hydrochloric acid is the solution of hydrogen chloride in water. It is a highly corrosive, strong acid mineral acid and has major industrial uses....
 will hydrolyse the peptide bond
Peptide bond

A peptide bond is a chemical bond formed between two molecules when the carboxyl group of one molecule reacts with the amine group of the other molecule, thereby releasing a molecule of water ....
s holding proteins together, releasing free amino acids.

Irreversible inhibitors display time-dependent inhibition and their potency therefore cannot be characterized by an IC50 value. This is because the amount of active enzyme at a given concentration of irreversible inhibitor will be different depending on how long the inhibitor is pre-incubated with the enzyme. Instead, kobs/[I] values are used, wherekobs is the observed pseudo-first order rate of inactivation (obtained by plotting the log of % activity vs. time) and [I] is the concentration of inhibitor. The kobs/[I] parameter is valid as long as the inhibitor does not saturate binding with the enzyme (in which case kobs = kinact).

Analysis of irreversible inhibition

Irreversible Inactivation2
As shown in the figure to the left, irreversible inhibitors form a reversible non-covalent complex with the enzyme (EI or ESI) and this then reacts to produce the covalently modified "dead-end complex" EI*. The rate at which EI* is formed is called the inactivation rate or kinact. Since formation of EI may compete with ES, binding of irreversible inhibitors can be prevented by competition either with substrate or with a second, reversible inhibitor. This protection effect is good evidence of a specific reaction of the irreversible inhibitor with the active site.

The binding and inactivation steps of this reaction are investigated by incubating the enzyme with inhibitor and assaying the amount of activity remaining over time. The activity will be decrease in a time-dependent manner, usually following exponential decay
Exponential decay

A quantity is said to be subject to exponential decay if it decreases at a rate proportional to its value. Symbolically, this can be expressed as the following differential equation, where N is the quantity and ? is a negative and non-negative numbers called the decay constant....
. Fitting these data to a rate equation
Rate equation

The rate law or rate equation for a chemical reaction is an equation which links the reaction rate with concentrations or pressures of reactants and constant parameters ....
 gives the rate of inactivation at this concentration of inhibitor. This is done at several different concentrations of inhibitor. If a reversible EI complex is involved the inactivation rate will be saturable and fitting this curve will give kinact and Ki.

Another method that is widely used in these analyses is mass spectrometry
Mass spectrometry

Mass spectrometry is an analytical technique for the determination of the elemental composition of a sample or molecule. It is also used for elucidating the chemical structures of molecules, such as peptides and other chemical compounds....
. Here, accurate measurement of the mass of the unmodified native enzyme and the inactivated enzyme gives the increase in mass caused by reaction with the inhibitor and shows the stoichiometry of the reaction. This is usually done using a MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer. In a complementary technique, peptide mass fingerprinting
Peptide mass fingerprinting

Peptide mass fingerprinting is an analytical technique for protein identification that was developed in 1993 by several groups independently. In this method, the unknown protein of interest is first cleaved into smaller peptides, whose absolute masses can be accurately measured with a mass spectrometer such as MALDI-TOF or Electrospray....
 involves digestion of the native and modified protein with a protease
Protease

A protease is any enzyme that conducts proteolysis, that is, begins protein catabolism by hydrolysis of the peptide bonds that link amino acids together in the polypeptide chain, which form a molecule of protein....
 such as trypsin
Trypsin

Trypsin is a serine protease found in the digestive system, where it breaks down proteins. Trypsin predominantly cleaves peptide chains at the carboxyl side of the amino acids lysine and arginine, except when either is followed by proline....
. This will produce a set of peptide
Peptide

Peptides are short polymers formed from the linking, in a defined order, of a-amino acids. The link between one amino acid residue and the next is known as an amide chemical bond or a peptide bond....
s that can be analysed using a mass spectrometer. The peptide that changes in mass after reaction with the inhibitor will be the one that contains the site of modification.

Special cases

Dfmo Mechanism
Not all irreversible inhibitors form covalent adducts with their enzyme targets. Some reversible inhibitors bind so tightly to their target enzyme that they are essentially irreversible. These tight-binding inhibitors may show kinetics similar to covalent irreversible inhibitors. In these cases, some of these inhibitors rapidly bind to the enzyme in a low-affinity EI complex and this then undergoes a slower rearrangement to a very tightly bound EI* complex (see figure above). This kinetic behaviour is called slow-binding. This slow rearrangement after binding often involves a conformational change
Conformational change

A macromolecule is usually flexible and dynamic. It can change its shape in response to changes in its environment or other factors; each possible shape is called a conformation, and a transition between them is called a conformational change....
 as the enzyme "clamps down" around the inhibitor molecule. Examples of slow-binding inhibitors include some important drugs, such methotrexate
Methotrexate

Methotrexate , abbreviated MTX and formerly known as amethopterin, is an antimetabolite and antifolate drug used in treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases....
, allopurinol
Allopurinol

Allopurinol is a drug used primarily to treat hyperuricemia and its complications, including chronic gout....
, and the activated form of acyclovir.

Examples of irreversible inhibitors


Diisopropylfluorophosphate
Diisopropylfluorophosphate

Diisopropyl fluorophosphate is an oily, colorless liquid with the chemical formula C6H14FO3P. It is used in medicine and as an organophosphate insecticide....
 (DFP) is shown as an example of an irreversible protease inhibitor in the figure above right. The enzyme hydrolyses the phosphorus–fluorine bond, but the phosphate residue remains bound to the serine in the active site
Catalytic triad

A catalytic triad commonly refers to the three amino acid residues found inside the active site of certain protease enzymes: serine , aspartate and histidine ....
, deactivating it. Similarly, DFP also reacts with the active site of acetylcholine esterase in the synapses of neurons, and consequently is a potent neurotoxin, with a lethal dose of less than 100 mg.

Suicide inhibition
Suicide inhibition

Suicide inhibition, also known as suicide inactivation, is a form of irreversible enzyme inhibition that occurs when an enzyme binds a substrate analogue and forms an irreversible complex with it through a covalent bond during the "normal" catalysis reaction....
 is an unusual type of irreversible inhibition where the enzyme converts the inhibitor into a reactive form in its active site. An example is the inhibitor of polyamine
Polyamine

The polyamines are organic compounds having two or more primary amino groups - such as putrescine, cadaverine, spermidine, and spermine - that are essential molecules in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells....
 biosynthesis, a-difluoromethylornithine
Eflornithine

Eflornithine is a medication manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis which has various uses. It was initially developed for cancer treatment, but while having little use in treating malignancies, it was found to be highly effective in African trypanosomiasis , especially the West African form ....
 or DFMO, which is an analogue of the amino acid ornithine
Ornithine

Ornithine is an amino acid which plays a role in the urea cycle....
, and is used to treat African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness). Ornithine decarboxylase
Ornithine decarboxylase

The enzyme ornithine decarboxylase participates in the urea cycle, and in the metabolism of glutathione and amino groups. In humans, this protein has 461 amino acids and forms a homodimer....
 can catalyse the decarboxylation of DFMO instead of ornithine, as shown above. However, this decarboxylation reaction is followed by the elimination of a fluorine atom, which converts this catalytic intermediate into a conjugated imine
Imine

An imine is a functional group or chemical compound containing a carbon?nitrogen double bond . Due to their diverse reactivity, imines are common substrates in a wide variety of transformations....
, a highly electrophilic species. This reactive form of DFMO then reacts with either a cysteine or lysine residue in the active site to irreversibly inactivate the enzyme.

Since irreversible inhibition often involves the initial formation of a non-covalent EI complex, it is sometimes possible for an inhibitor to bind to an enzyme in more than one way. For example, in the figure showing trypanothione reductase
Trypanothione

Trypanothione is an unusual form of glutathione containing two molecules of glutathione joined by a spermidine linker. It is found in parasitic protozoa such as leishmania and trypanosomes....
 from the human protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi
Trypanosoma cruzi

Trypanosoma cruzi is a species of parasite euglenoid trypanosomes. The species causes the trypanosomiasis diseases in humans and animals in United States....
, two molecules of an inhibitor called quinacrine mustard are bound in its active site. The top molecule is bound reversibly, but the lower one is bound covalently as it has reacted with an amino acid residue through its nitrogen mustard
Nitrogen mustard

The nitrogen mustards are cytotoxic chemotherapy agents similar to mustard gas. Although their common use is medicinal, in principle these compounds may also be used for chemical warfare purposes....
 group.

Discovery and design of inhibitors

Screening Robotics for Hts
New drugs are the products of a long drug development
Drug development

Drug development or preclinical development is defined in many pharmaceutical companies as the process of taking a new chemical lead through the stages necessary to allow it to be tested in human clinical trials, although a broader definition would encompass the entire process of drug discovery and clinical testing of novel drug candida...
 process, the first step of which is often the discovery of a new enzyme inhibitor. In the past the only way to discover these new inhibitors was by trial and error: screening huge libraries of compounds against a target enzyme and hoping that some useful leads would emerge. This brute force approach is still successful and has even been extended by combinatorial chemistry
Combinatorial chemistry

combinatorics chemistry involves the rapid organic synthesis or the computer simulation of a large number of different but structurally related molecules....
 approaches that quickly produce large numbers of novel compounds and high-throughput screening
High-throughput screening

High-throughput screening is a method for scientific experimentation especially used in drug discovery and relevant to the fields of biology and chemistry....
 technology to rapidly screen these huge chemical libraries for useful inhibitors.

More recently, an alternative approach has been applied: rational drug design uses the three-dimensional structure
Protein structure

Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such chemical element as carbon,hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur....
 of an enzyme's active site to predict which molecules might be inhibitors. These predictions are then tested and one of these tested compounds may be a novel inhibitor. This new inhibitor is then used to try to obtain a structure of the enzyme in an inhibitor/enzyme complex to show how the molecule is binding to the active site, allowing changes to be made to the inhibitor to try to optimise binding. This test and improve cycle is then repeated until a sufficiently potent inhibitor is produced. Computer-based methods
Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology. The term bioinformatics was coined by Paulien Hogeweg in 1978 for the study of informatic processes in biotic systems....
 of predicting the affinity of an inhibitor for an enzyme are also being developed, such as molecular docking.

Uses of inhibitors

Enzyme inhibitors are found in nature and are also designed and produced as part of pharmacology
Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the study of drug action. More specifically it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and exogenous chemicals that alter normal biochemical function....
 and biochemistry
Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry processes in living organisms. It deals with the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules....
. Natural poison
Poison

In the context of biology, poisons are Chemical substance that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
s are often enzyme inhibitors that have evolved to defend a plant or animal against predators
Predation

In ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey, the organism that is attacked. Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of the prey....
. These natural toxins include some of the most poisonous compounds known. Artificial inhibitors are often used as drugs, but can also be insecticide
Insecticide

An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects in all developmental forms. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the Egg and larvae of insects respectively....
s such as malathion
Malathion

Malathion is an organophosphate parasympathomimetic which binds irreversibly to cholinesterase. Malathion is an insecticide of relatively low human toxicity....
, herbicide
Herbicide

A herbicide is used to kill unwanted plants. Selective herbicides kill specific targets while leaving the desired crop relatively unharmed. Some of these act by interfering with the growth of the weed and are often synthetic "imitations" of plant hormones....
s such as glyphosate
Glyphosate

Glyphosate is a non-selective systemic herbicide, absorbed through the leaves, injected into the Trunk , or applied to the stump of a tree, used to kill weeds, especially Perennial plants and broadcast or used in the cut-stump treatment as a forestry herbicide....
, or disinfectants
Disinfection

Disinfectants are antimicrobial agents that are applied to non-living objects to destroy microorganisms, the process of which is known as disinfection....
 such as triclosan
Triclosan

Triclosan is a potent wide spectrum antibiotic and fungus agent. It is a polychloro phenoxy phenol....
.

Chemotherapy

Sildenafil
Transpeptidase With Bound Penicillin


The most common uses for enzyme inhibitors are as drugs to treat disease. Many of these inhibitors target a human enzyme and aim to correct a pathological condition. However, not all drugs are enzyme inhibitors. Some, such as anti-epileptic drugs
Anticonvulsant

The anticonvulsants are a diverse group of pharmacology used in the treatment of epilepsy seizures. Anticonvulsants are also increasingly being used the treatment of bipolar disorder, since many seem to act as mood stabilizers....
, alter enzyme activity by causing more or less of the enzyme to be produced. These effects are called enzyme induction and inhibition and are alterations in gene expression
Gene expression

Gene expression is the process by which inheritable information from a gene, such as the DNA sequence, is made into a functional gene product, such as protein or RNA....
, which is unrelated to the type of enzyme inhibition discussed here. Other drugs interact with cellular targets that are not enzymes, such as ion channel
Ion channel

Ion channels are pore-forming proteins that help establish and control the small voltage gradient across the plasma membrane of all living cell s by allowing the flow of ions down their electrochemical gradient....
s or membrane receptors
Receptor (biochemistry)

In biochemistry, a receptor is a protein molecule, embedded in either the plasma membrane or cytoplasm of a cell, to which a mobile signaling molecule may attach....
.

An example of a medicinal enzyme inhibitor is sildenafil
Sildenafil

Sildenafil citrate, sold as Viagra, Revatio and under various other trade names, is a Medication used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension ....
 (Viagra), a common treatment for male erectile dysfunction. This compound is a potent inhibitor of cGMP specific phosphodiesterase type 5
CGMP specific phosphodiesterase type 5

cGMP-specific phosphodiesterase type 5 is an enzyme from the phosphodiesterase class. It is found in various tissues, most prominently the corpus cavernosum and the retina....
, the enzyme that degrades the signalling
Cell signaling

Cell signaling is part of a complex system of communication that governs basic cellular activities and coordinates cell actions. The ability of cells to perceive and correctly respond to their microenvironment is the basis of development, tissue repair, and immunity as well as normal tissue homeostasis....
 molecule cyclic guanosine monophosphate
Cyclic guanosine monophosphate

Cyclic guanosine monophosphate is a cyclic nucleotide derived from guanosine triphosphate . cGMP acts as a second messenger much like cyclic AMP, most notably by activating intracellular protein kinases in response to the binding of cell membrane-impermeable peptide hormones to the external cell surface....
. This signalling molecule triggers smooth muscle relaxation and allows blood flow into the corpus cavernosum
Corpus cavernosum penis

The corpus cavernosum penis is one of a pair of sponge-like regions of erectile tissue which contain most of the blood in the male penis during erection....
, which causes an erection. Since the drug decreases the activity of the enzyme that halts the signal, it makes this signal last for a longer period of time.

Another example of the structural similarity of some inhibitors to the substrates of the enzymes they target is seen in the figure comparing the drug methotrexate
Methotrexate

Methotrexate , abbreviated MTX and formerly known as amethopterin, is an antimetabolite and antifolate drug used in treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases....
 to folic acid
Folic acid

Folic acid and Folate are forms of the water-soluble B vitamins. Vitamin B9 is essential to numerous bodily functions ranging from nucleotide synthesis to the remethylation of homocysteine....
. Folic acid is the oxidised form of the substrate of dihydrofolate reductase
Dihydrofolate reductase

Dihydrofolate reductase, or DHFR, is an enzyme which reduces dihydrofolic acid to tetrahydrofolic acid, using NADPH as electron donor, which can be converted to the kinds of tetrahydrofolate cofactors used in 1-carbon transfer chemistry....
, an enzyme that is potently inhibited by methotrexate. Methotrexate blocks the action of dihydrofolate reductase and thereby halts thymidine
Thymidine

Thymidine is a chemical Chemical compound, more precisely a pyrimidine deoxynucleoside. Deoxythymidine is the DNA nucleoside T, which pairs with deoxyadenosine in double-stranded DNA....
 biosynthesis. This block of nucleotide
Nucleotide

Nucleotides are molecules that comprise the structural units of RNA and DNA. Additionally, nucleotides play central roles in metabolism. In that capacity, they serve as sources of chemical energy , participate in cell signaling , and are incorporated into important cofactors of enzymatic reactions ....
 biosynthesis is selectively toxic to rapidly growing cells, therefore methotrexate is often used in cancer chemotherapy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, refers to treatment of disease by chemicals that kill cells, specifically those of micro-organisms or cancer....
.

Drugs also are used to inhibit enzymes needed for the survival of pathogen
Pathogen

A pathogen , infectious agent, or germ, is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its Host .There are several substrates and pathways whereby pathogens can invade a host; the principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil contamination has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring...
s. For example, bacteria are surrounded by a thick cell wall
Bacterial cell structure

Bacteria, despite their simplicity, contain a well developed cell structure which is responsible for many of their unique biological properties. Many structural features are unique to bacteria and are not found among archaea or eukaryotes....
 made of a net-like polymer called peptidoglycan
Peptidoglycan

Peptidoglycan, also known as murein, is a polymer consisting of sugars and amino acids that forms a mesh-like layer outside the plasma membrane of bacteria, forming the cell wall....
. Many antibiotics such as penicillin
Penicillin

Penicillin is a group of antibiotics derived from Penicillium fungi. They are Beta-lactam antibiotics used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by susceptible, usually Gram-positive, organisms....
 and vancomycin
Vancomycin

Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic used in the prophylaxis and treatment of infections caused by Gram-positive bacterium. It has traditionally been reserved as a drug of last resort, used only after treatment with other antibiotics had failed, although the emergence of vancomycin-resistant organisms means that it is increasingly being...
 inhibit the enzymes that produce and then cross-link the strands of this polymer together. This causes the cell wall to lose strength and the bacteria to burst. In the figure, a molecule of penicillin (shown in a ball-and stick form) is shown bound to its target, the transpeptidase
Transpeptidase

A transpeptidase is a bacterial enzyme that cross-links the peptidoglycan chains to form rigid cell walls. This enzyme is also known by several other names including DD-peptidase, DD-transpeptidase, D-alanyl-D-alanine carboxypeptidase and serine-type D-Ala-D-Ala carboxypeptidase....
 from the bacteria Streptomyces R61 (the protein is shown as a ribbon-diagram
Protein structure

Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all biological organisms, made up of such chemical element as carbon,hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulphur....
).

Drug design
Drug design

Drug design is the approach of finding medication by design, based on their biological targets. Typically a drug target is a key molecule involved in a particular metabolic or signalling Metabolic pathway that is specific to a disease condition or pathology, or to the infectivity or survival of a Microorganism pathogen....
 is facilitated when an enzyme that is essential to the pathogen's survival is absent or very different in humans. In the example above, humans do not make peptidoglycan, therefore inhibitors of this process are selectively toxic to bacteria. Selective toxicity is also produced in antibiotics by exploiting differences in the structure of the ribosome
Ribosome

Ribosomes are complexes of RNA and protein that are found in all cell s. Ribosomes from bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes, the three domains of life on Earth, have significantly different structure and RNA....
s in bacteria, or how they make fatty acid
Fatty acid

In chemistry, especially biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid often with a long unbranched aliphatic tail , which is either saturation or Unsaturated compound....
s.

Metabolic control

Enzyme inhibitors are also important in metabolic control. Many metabolic pathway
Metabolic pathway

In biochemistry, a metabolic pathway is a series of chemistry reactions occurring within a cell . In each pathway, a principal chemical is modified by chemical reactions....
s in the cell are inhibited by metabolite
Metabolite

Metabolites are the intermediates and products of metabolism. The term metabolite is usually restricted to small molecules. A primary metabolite is directly involved in normal growth, development, and reproduction....
s that control enzyme activity through allosteric regulation
Allosteric regulation

In biochemistry, allosteric regulation is the regulation of an enzyme or other protein by binding an Effector molecule at the protein's allosteric site ....
 or substrate inhibition. A good example is the allosteric regulation of the glycolytic pathway
Glycolysis

Glycolysis is the metabolic pathway that converts glucose, C6H12O6, into pyruvate, C3H5O3-....
. This catabolic
Catabolism

Catabolism is the set of metabolic pathways which break down molecules into smaller units and release energy. In catabolism, large molecules such as polysaccharides, lipids, nucleic acids and proteins are broken down into smaller units such as monosaccharides, fatty acids, nucleotides and amino acids, respectively....
 pathway consumes glucose
Glucose

Glucose , a monosaccharide also known as grape sugar, blood sugar, or corn sugar, is a very important carbohydrate in biology....
 and produces ATP
Adenosine triphosphate

This article is about the chemical used by cells as an energy carrier. For other uses, see ATP .Adenosine-5'-triphosphate is a multifunctional nucleotide, and plays an important role in cell biology as a coenzyme that is the "molecule unit of currency" of intracellular energy transfer....
, NADH
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, abbreviated NAD+, is a coenzyme found in all living cell s. The compound is a dinucleotide, since it consists of two nucleotides joined through their phosphate groups: with one nucleotide containing an adenine base, and the other containing nicotinamide....
 and pyruvate. A key step for the regulation of glycolysis is an early reaction in the pathway catalysed by phosphofructokinase-1
Phosphofructokinase

Phosphofructokinase-1 is the most important regulatory enzyme of glycolysis. It is an allosteric enzyme made of 4 subunits and controlled by several activators and Enzyme inhibitors....
 (PFK1). When ATP levels rise, ATP binds an allosteric site in PFK1 to decrease the rate of the enzyme reaction; glycolysis is inhibited and ATP production falls. This negative feedback
Feedback

Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence the same event/phenomenon in the present or future....
 control helps maintain a steady concentration of ATP in the cell. However, metabolic pathways are not just regulated through inhibition since enzyme activation is equally important. With respect to PFK1, fructose 2,6-bisphosphate
Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate

Fructose 2,6-bisphosphate , abbreviated Fru-2,6-P2, is a metabolite which allosterically affects the activity of the enzymes phosphofructokinase 1 and fructose 1,6-bisphosphatase to regulate glycolysis and gluconeogenesis....
 and ADP
Adenosine diphosphate

Adenosine diphosphate, abbreviated ADP, is a nucleotide. It is an ester of pyrophosphoric acid with the nucleoside adenosine. ADP consists of the pyrophosphate Functional group, the pentose sugar ribose, and the nucleobase adenine....
 are examples of metabolites that are allosteric activators.

Physiological enzyme inhibition can also be produced by specific protein inhibitors. This mechanism occurs in the pancreas
Pancreas

The pancreas is a gland Organ in the digestive system and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland , as well as an exocrine gland, secreting pancreatic juice containing Digestion enzymes that pass to the small intestine....
, which synthesises many digestive precursor enzymes known as zymogen
Zymogen

A zymogen is an inactive enzyme Protein precursor. A zymogen requires a biochemical change for it to become an active enzyme. The biochemical change usually occurs in a lysosome where a specific part of the precursor enzyme is cleaved in order to activate it....
s. Many of these are activated by the trypsin
Trypsin

Trypsin is a serine protease found in the digestive system, where it breaks down proteins. Trypsin predominantly cleaves peptide chains at the carboxyl side of the amino acids lysine and arginine, except when either is followed by proline....
 protease, so it is important to inhibit the activity of trypsin in the pancreas to prevent the organ from digesting itself. One way in which the activity of trypsin is controlled is the production of a specific and potent trypsin inhibitor
Trypsin inhibitor

Trypsin inhibitors are chemicals that reduce the availability of trypsin, an enzyme essential to nutrition of many animals, including humans.There are four commercial sources of trypsin inhibitors....
 protein in the pancreas. This inhibitor binds tightly to trypsin, preventing the trypsin activity that would otherwise be detrimental to the organ. Although the trypsin inhibitor is a protein, it avoids being hydrolysed as a substrate by the protease by excluding water from trypsin's active site and destabilising the transition state. Other examples of physiological enzyme inhibitor proteins include the barstar
Barstar

Barstar is a small protein synthesized by the bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. Its function is to inhibit the ribonuclease activity of its binding partner barnase, with which it forms an extraordinarily tightly bound complex within the cell until barnase is secreted....
 inhibitor of the bacterial ribonuclease barnase
Barnase

Barnase is a bacterial protein that consists of 110 amino acids and has ribonuclease activity. It is synthesized and secreted by the bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, but is lethal to the cell when expressed without its inhibitor barstar....
 and the inhibitors of protein phosphatases.

Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors

Acetylcholinesterase
Acetylcholinesterase

Acetylcholinesterase, also known as AChE, is an enzyme that degrades the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, producing choline and an acetate group....
 (AChE) is an enzyme found in animals from insects to humans. It is essential to nerve cell function through its mechanism of breaking down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine
Acetylcholine

The chemical compound acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter in both the peripheral nervous system and central nervous system in many organisms including homo sapiens....
 into its constituents, acetate
Acetate

An acetate, or ethanoate, is either a salt or ester of acetic acid.In chemistry, the abbreviation Ac refers to the acetyl group. The anion and the functional group may be written as -OAc and AcO-, or OAc respectively....
 and choline
Choline

Choline is an organic compound, classified as a water-soluble essential nutrient and usually grouped within the Vitamin B complex. This natural amine is found in the lipids that make up cell membranes and in the neurotransmitter acetylcholine....
. This is somewhat unique among neurotransmitters as most, including serotonin
Serotonin

Serotonin is a monoamine neurotransmitter synthesized in serotonergic neurons in the central nervous system and enterochromaffin cells in the gastrointestinal tract of animals including humans....
, dopamine
Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter occurring in a wide variety of animals, including both vertebrates and invertebrates. In the human brain, this phenethylamine functions as a neurotransmitter, activating the five types of dopamine receptors ? D1, D2, D3, D4 and D5, and their variants....
, and norepinephrine
Norepinephrine

Norepinephrine or noradrenaline is a catecholamine with dual roles as a hormone and a neurotransmitter.As a stress hormone, norepinephrine affects parts of the brain where attention and responding actions are controlled....
, are absorbed from the synaptic cleft rather than cleaved. A large number of AChE inhibitors are used in both medicine and agriculture. Reversible competitive inhibitors, such as edrophonium
Edrophonium

Edrophonium is a readily reversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. It prevents breakdown of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and acts by competitively inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, mainly at the neuromuscular junction....
, physostigmine
Physostigmine

Physostigmine is a parasympathomimetic, specifically, a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor alkaloid of the Calabar bean.The chemical was synthesized for the first time in 1935 by the chemists Percy Lavon Julian and Josef Pikl....
, and neostigmine
Neostigmine

Neostigmine is a Parasympathomimetic drug, specifically, a reversible cholinesterase inhibitor.Neostigmine is available under several trade names such as Prostigmin and Vagostigmin....
, are used in the treatment of myasthenia gravis
Myasthenia gravis

Myasthenia gravis is a neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatigue . It is an autoimmunity, in which weakness is caused by circulating antibody that block acetylcholine receptors at the post-synaptic neuromuscular junction, inhibiting the stimulative effect of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine....
 and in anaesthesia. The carbamate
Carbamate

Carbamates, or urethanes, are a group of organic compounds sharing a common functional group with the general structure -NHO-. Carbamates are esters of carbamic acid, NH2COOH, an unstable compound....
 pesticides are also examples of reversible AChE inhibitors. The organophosphate
Organophosphate

An organophosphate is the general name for esters of phosphoric acid. Phosphates are probably the most pervasive organophosphorus compounds. Many of the most important biochemicals are organophosphates, including DNA and RNA as well as many cofactor s that are essential for life....
 insecticides such as malathion
Malathion

Malathion is an organophosphate parasympathomimetic which binds irreversibly to cholinesterase. Malathion is an insecticide of relatively low human toxicity....
, parathion
Parathion

Parathion, also called parathion-ethyl or diethyl parathion, is an organophosphate compound. It is a potent insecticide and acaricide. It was originally developed by IG Farben in the 1940s....
, and chlorpyrifos
Chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos is a toxic crystalline organophosphate insecticide that inhibits acetylcholinesterase and is used to control insect pests. Trade names include Dursban and Lorsban ....
 irreversibly inhibit acetylcholinesterase.

3 Types of Lentil

Natural poisons

Animals and plants have evolved to synthesize a vast array of poisonous products including secondary metabolite
Secondary metabolite

Secondary metabolites are organic compounds that are not directly involved in the normal cell growth, Biological development or reproduction of organisms....
s, peptides and proteins that can act as inhibitors. Natural toxins are usually small organic molecules and are so diverse that there are probably natural inhibitors for most metabolic processes. The metabolic processes targeted by natural poisons encompass more than enzymes in metabolic pathways and can also include the inhibition of receptor, channel and structural protein functions in a cell. For example, paclitaxel
Paclitaxel

Paclitaxel is a mitotic inhibitor used in cancer chemotherapy. It was discovered in a National Cancer Institute program at the Research Triangle Institute in 1967 when Monroe E....
 (taxol), an organic molecule found in the Pacific yew tree
Taxus

Taxus is a genus of yews, small Pinophyta trees or shrubs in the yew family Taxaceae. They are relatively slow growing and can be very long-lived, and reach heights of 1-40 m, with trunk diameters of up to 4 m....
, binds tightly to tubulin
Tubulin

Tubulin is one of several members of a small family of globular proteins. The most common members of the tubulin family are a-tubulin and ?-tubulin, the proteins that make up microtubules....
 dimers and inhibits their assembly into microtubule
Microtubule

Microtubules are one of the components of the cytoskeleton. They have a diameter of 25 Nanometre and length varying from 200 nanometers to 25 micrometers....
s in the cytoskeleton
Cytoskeleton

The cytoskeleton is a cellular "scaffolding" or "skeleton" contained within the cytoplasm. The cytoskeleton is present in all cells; it was once thought this structure was unique to eukaryotes, but recent research has identified the prokaryotic cytoskeleton....
.

Many natural poisons act as neurotoxin
Neurotoxin

A neurotoxin is a toxin that acts specifically on nerve cells , usually by interacting with membrane proteins such as ion channels.Some sources are more general, and define the effect of neurotoxins as occurring at nerve tissue....
s that can cause paralysis
Paralysis

Paralysis is the complete loss of muscle function for one or more muscle groups. Paralysis can cause loss of feeling or loss of mobility in the affected area....
 leading to death and have functions for defence against predators or in hunting and capturing prey. Some of these natural inhibitors, despite their toxic attributes, are valuable for therapeutic uses at lower doses. An example of a neurotoxin are the glycoalkaloid
Glycoalkaloid

Glycoalkaloids are a family of poisons commonly found in the plant species Solanum dulcamara . There are several glycoalkaloids that are potentially toxic....
s, from the plant species in the Solanaceae
Solanaceae

The Solanaceae is a family of flowering plants, that contains a number of important agricultural plants as well as many toxic plants. The name of the family comes from the Latin Solanum "the nightshade plant", but the further etymology of that word is unclear....
 family (includes potato
Potato

The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial plant Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family. The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well....
, tomato
Tomato

The Tomato is an herbaceous, usually sprawling plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family, as are its close cousins Nicotiana, potatoes, aubergine , chilli peppers, and the poisonous Atropa belladonna....
 and eggplant), that are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. Inhibition of this enzyme causes an uncontrolled increase in the acetylcholine neurotransmitter, muscular paralysis and then death. Neurotoxicity can also result from the inhibition of receptors; for example, atropine
Atropine

Atropine is a tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade , jimsonweed , Mandrake and other plants of the family Solanaceae. It is a secondary metabolite of these plants and serves as a hard drug with a wide variety of effects....
 from deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) that functions as a competitive antagonist
Competitive antagonist

A competitive antagonist is a receptor antagonist that binds to a Receptor but does not activate the receptor. The antagonist will compete with available agonist for receptor binding sites on the same receptor....
 of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors
Acetylcholine receptor

An acetylcholine receptor is an integral membrane protein that responds to the binding of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine....
.

Although many natural toxins are secondary metabolites, these poisons also include peptides and proteins. An example of a toxic peptide is alpha-amanitin
Alpha-amanitin

alpha-Amanitin or a-amanitin is a Cyclic compound peptide of eight amino acids. It is possibly the most deadly of all the amatoxins, toxins found in several members of the Amanita genus of mushrooms, one being the Death cap as well as the Destroying angel, a complex of similar species, principally A....
, which is found in relatives of the death cap
Death cap

'Amanita phalloides' , commonly known as the 'death cap', is a poisonous basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita. Widely distributed across Europe, A....
 mushroom. This is a potent enzyme inhibitor, in this case preventing the RNA polymerase II
RNA polymerase II

RNA polymerase II is an enzyme found in eukaryotic cells. It catalyzes the Transcription of DNA to synthesize precursors of mRNA and most snRNA and microRNA....
 enzyme from transcribing DNA. The algal toxin microcystin
Microcystin

Microcystins are cyclic nonribosomal peptides produced by cyanobacteria. They are cyanotoxins and can be very toxic for plants and animals including humans....
 is also a peptide and is an inhibitor of protein phosphatases. This toxin can contaminate water supplies after algal bloom
Algal bloom

An algal bloom is a rapid increase in the population of algae in an aquatic system. Algal blooms may occur in freshwater as well as marine environments....
s and is a known carcinogen that can also cause acute liver hemorrhage and death at higher doses.

Proteins can also be natural poisons or antinutrient
Antinutrient

Antinutrients are natural or synthetic compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Nutrition studies focus on those antinutrients commonly found in food sources and beverages....
s, such as the trypsin inhibitor
Trypsin inhibitor

Trypsin inhibitors are chemicals that reduce the availability of trypsin, an enzyme essential to nutrition of many animals, including humans.There are four commercial sources of trypsin inhibitors....
s (discussed above) that are found in some legume
Pulse (legume)

Pulses are annual leguminous crops yielding from one to twelve grains or seeds of variable size, shape and color within a pod, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations ....
s, as shown in the figure above. A less common class of toxins are toxic enzymes: these act as irreversible inhibitors of their target enzymes and work by chemically modifying their substrate enzymes. An example is ricin
Ricin

Ricin is a protein toxin that is solvent extraction from the Castor oil plant .The US Centers for Disease Control gives a possible minimum figure of 500 micrograms for the lethal dose of ricin in humans if exposure is from injection or inhalation....
, an extremely potent protein toxin found in castor oil beans
Castor oil plant

The castor oil plant, Ricinus communis, is a species of flowering plant in the Euphorbia family, Euphorbiaceae. It belongs to a Monotype genus, Ricinus, and subtribe, Ricininae....
. This enzyme is a glycosidase that inactivates ribosomes. Since ricin is a catalytic irreversible inhibitor, this allows just a single molecule of ricin to kill a cell.

See also

  • Allosteric regulation
    Allosteric regulation

    In biochemistry, allosteric regulation is the regulation of an enzyme or other protein by binding an Effector molecule at the protein's allosteric site ....
  • Enzyme assay
    Enzyme assay

    Enzyme assays are laboratory methods for measuring enzyme activity. They are vital for the study of enzyme kinetics and enzyme inhibitor....
  • Medicinal chemistry
    Medicinal chemistry

    Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacology involved with drug design, organic synthesis and developing pharmaceutical medication....
  • Pharmacophore
    Pharmacophore

    A pharmacophore was first defined by Paul Ehrlich in 1909 as "a molecular scaffold that carries the essential features responsible for a drug?s biological activity" ....
  • Activity based proteomics
    Activity based proteomics

    Activity based proteomics, or activity based protein profiling is a functional proteomics technology that uses specially designed chemical probes that react with mechanistically-related classes of enzymes....
     - a branch of proteomics
    Proteomics

    Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins, particularly their protein structure and functional genomics. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, as they are the main components of the physiological metabolic pathways of biological cell....
     that uses covalent enzyme inhibitors as reporters to monitor enzyme activity.
  • Antimetabolite
    Antimetabolite

    An antimetabolite is a chemical that enzyme inhibition the use of a metabolite, which is another chemical that is part of normal metabolism. Such substances are often similar in structure to the metabolite that they interfere with, such as the antifolates that interfere with the use of folic acid....


External links

  • , Tutorial by Dr Peter Birch of the University of Paisley, containing very clear animations
  • , Recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry (NC-IUB) on enzyme inhibition terminology
  • , Database of drugs and enzyme inhibitors
  • , Database of enzymes giving lists of known inhibitors for each entry
  • , On-line lecture concentrating on medical applications of enzyme inhibitors: by Dr. Michael W. King of the IU School of Medicine
  • , a public database of measured protein-ligand binding affinities.
  • (tutorial + quizzes).