Enzyme inhibition

What types of enzyme inhibition are there?

Competitive inhibitors, non-competitive inhibitors, irreversible inhibitors, reversible inhibitors

What is the structure and function of a competitive inhibitor?

These compete for the active site with the normal substrate, so have a similar structure to that of the substrate. The success of the binding for most depends on the relative concentrations of the enzyme and substrate - it is reversible when substrate concentration decreases

When does irreversible inhibition occur?

When covalent bonds are formed, which distorts the active site permanently (like the use of cyanide)

What is a non competitive inhibitor?

These reduce the activity of the enzyme by distorting the enzyme conformation caused by binding to a site other than the active site. If the binding is non-covalent, the inhibition may be reversible when the inhibitor concentration is diminished

What is an activator?

A molecule required to complete the structural relationship between the active site and the substrate

What is an allosteric activator?

A molecule which exists to enhance the enzyme-substrate binding by altering the enzyme conformation when bound to an allosteric (anywhere apart from the active site) site on the enzyme