Enzyme inhibitor

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

HIV protease in a complex with the protease inhibitor ritonavir. The structure of the protease is shown by the red, blue and yellow ribbons. The inhibitor is shown as the smaller ball-and-stick structure near the centre. Created from PDB 1HXW.

Enzyme inhibitors are molecules that bind to enzymes and decrease their activity. Since blocking an enzyme's activity can kill a pathogen or correct a metabolic imbalance, many drugs are enzyme inhibitors. They are also used as herbicides and pesticides. Not all molecules that bind to enzymes are inhibitors; enzyme activators bind to enzymes and increase their enzymatic activity.

The binding of an inhibitor can stop a substrate from entering the enzyme's active site and/or hinder the enzyme from catalysing its reaction. Inhibitor binding is either reversible or irreversible. Irreversible inhibitors usually react with the enzyme and change it chemically. These inhibitors modify key amino acid residues needed for enzymatic activity. In contrast, reversible inhibitors bind non-covalently and different types of inhibition are produced depending on whether these inhibitors bind the enzyme, the enzyme-substrate complex, or both.

Many drug molecules are enzyme inhibitors, so their discovery and improvement is an active area of research in biochemistry and pharmacology. A medicinal enzyme inhibitor is often judged by its specificity (its lack of binding to other proteins) and its potency (its dissociation constant, which indicates the concentration needed to inhibit the enzyme). A high specificity and potency ensure that a drug will have few side effects and thus low toxicity.

Enzyme inhibitors also occur naturally and are involved in the regulation of metabolism. For example, enzymes in a metabolic pathway can be inhibited by downstream products. This type of negative feedback slows flux through a pathway when the products begin to build up and is an important way to maintain homeostasis in a cell. Other cellular enzyme inhibitors are proteins that specifically bind to and inhibit an enzyme target. This can help control enzymes that may be damaging to a cell, such as proteases or nucleases; a well-characterised example is the ribonuclease inhibitor, which binds to ribonucleases in one of the tightest known protein–protein interactions.[1] Natural enzyme inhibitors can also be poisons and are used as defenses against predators or as ways of killing prey.

## Contents

* 1 Reversible inhibitors
* 1.1 Types of reversible inhibitor
* 1.2 Quantitative description of reversible inhibition
* 1.3 Measuring the dissociation constants of a reversible inhibitor
* 1.4 Special cases
* 1.5 Examples of reversible inhibitors
* 2 Irreversible inhibitors
* 2.1 Types of irreversible inhibition
* 2.2 Analysis of irreversible inhibition
* 2.3 Special cases
* 2.4 Examples of irreversible inhibitors
* 3 Discovery and design of inhibitors
* 4 Uses of inhibitors
* 4.1 Chemotherapy
* 4.2 Metabolic control
* 4.3 Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors
* 4.4 Natural poisons
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

## Reversible inhibitors

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### Types of reversible inhibitor

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Reversible inhibitors bind to enzymes with non-covalent interactions such as hydrogen bonds, hydrophobic interactions and ionic bonds. Multiple weak bonds between the inhibitor and the active site combine to produce strong and specific binding. In contrast to substrates 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.

File:Competitive inhibitor diagram.svg

There are three kinds of reversible enzyme inhibitors. They are classified according to the effect of varying the concentration of the enzyme's substrate on the inhibitor.[2]

* In competitive inhibition, 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 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 mixed 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 (i.e., tertiary structure or three-dimensional shape) of the enzyme so that the affinity of the substrate for the active site is reduced.

* Non-competitive inhibition 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

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Reversible inhibition can be described quantitatively in terms of the inhibitor's binding to the enzyme and to the enzyme–substrate complex, and its effects on the kinetic constants of the enzyme. In the classic Michaelis–Menten scheme 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 constants 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).

| Kinetic scheme for reversible enzyme inhibitors

|

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.[3]

### Measuring the dissociation constants of a reversible inhibitor

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File:Inhibition diagrams.png

As noted above, an enzyme inhibitor is characterized by its two dissociation constants, 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, in which the inhibitor is titrated into a solution of enzyme and the heat released or absorbed is measured.[4] 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 the data[5] to a modified Michaelis–Menten equation

<math>

V = \frac{V_{max}[S]}{\alpha K_{m} + \alpha^{\prime}[S]} = \frac{(1/\alpha^{\prime})V_{max}[S]}{(\alpha/\alpha^{\prime}) K_{m} + [S]} </math>

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

<math>

\alpha = 1 + \frac{[I]}{K_{i}} </math>

<math>

\alpha^{\prime} = 1 + \frac{[I]}{K_{i}^{\prime}} </math>

Thus, in the presence of the inhibitor, the enzyme's effective Km and Vmax become (α/α')Km and (1/α')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. 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,[6] so it is advisable to estimate these constants using more reliable nonlinear regression methods, as described above.

### Special cases

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* 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.[7]

* 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.[7]

* 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 are followed. However, at higher concentrations, the second inhibitory site becomes occupied, inhibiting the enzyme.[8] Product inhibition is often a regulatory feature in metabolism and can be a form of negative feedback.

* 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

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File:Ritonavir.png

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, a very successful class of antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV.[9] The structure of ritonavir, a protease inhibitor based on a peptide and containing three peptide bonds, 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 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; this drug mimics the planar nature of the ring oxonium ion in the reaction of the viral enzyme neuraminidase.

File:Tipranavir structure.svg

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

In drug design it is important to consider the concentrations of substrates to which the target enzymes are exposed. For example, some protein kinase inhibitors have chemical structures that are similar to adenosine triphosphate, 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.[10]

## Irreversible inhibitors

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### Types of irreversible inhibition

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File:DIF reaction.png

Irreversible inhibitors usually covalently modify an enzyme, and inhibition cannot therefore be reversed. Irreversible inhibitors often contain reactive functional groups such as nitrogen mustards, aldehydes, haloalkanes or alkenes. These electrophilic groups react with amino acid side chains to form covalent adducts. The residues modified are those with side chains containing nucleophiles such as hydroxyl or sulfhydryl groups; these include the amino acids serine (as in DFP, right), cysteine, threonine or tyrosine.[11]

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 but by specifically altering the active site of their target. For example, extremes of pH or temperature usually cause denaturation of all protein structure, but this is a non-specific effect. Similarly, some non-specific chemical treatments destroy protein structure: for example, heating in concentrated hydrochloric acid will hydrolyse the peptide bonds holding proteins together, releasing free amino acids.[12]

### Analysis of irreversible inhibition

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Kinetic scheme for irreversible inhibitors

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. Fitting these data to a rate equation 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.[13]

Another method that is widely used in these analyses is mass spectrometry. 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 involves digestion of the native and modified protein with a protease such as trypsin. This will produce a set of peptides 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

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Chemical mechanism for irreversible inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase by DFMO. Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (Py) and enzyme (E) are not shown. Adapted from[14]

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.[15] This slow rearrangement after binding often involves a conformational change as the enzyme "clamps down" around the inhibitor molecule. Examples of slow-binding inhibitors include some important drugs, such methotrexate,[16] allopurinol,[17] and the activated form of acyclovir.[18]

### Examples of irreversible inhibitors

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Trypanothione reductase with the lower molecule of an inhibitor bound irreversibly and the upper one reversibly. Created from PDB 1GXF.

Diisopropylfluorophosphate (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, deactivating it.[19] 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.[20]

Suicide inhibition 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 biosynthesis, α-difluoromethylornithine or DFMO, which is an analogue of the amino acid ornithine, and is used to treat African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness). Ornithine decarboxylase 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, 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.[14]

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 from the human protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, 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 group.[21]

## Discovery and design of inhibitors

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Robots used for the high-throughput screening of chemical libraries to discover new enzyme inhibitors

New drugs are the products of a long drug development 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 approaches that quickly produce large numbers of novel compounds and high-throughput screening 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 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. This structure is then inspected and changes made to the inhibitor to try to optimise binding. This test and improve cycle is then repeated until a sufficiently potent inhibitor is produced. Typically, this process aims to produce an inhibitor with a dissociation constant of <10-9 M.[22]

## Uses of inhibitors

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Enzyme inhibitors are found in nature and are also designed and produced as part of pharmacology and biochemistry. Natural poisons are often enzyme inhibitors that have evolved to defend a plant or animal against predators. These natural toxins include some of the most poisonous compounds known today. Artificial inhibitors are often used as drugs, but can also be insecticides such as malathion, herbicides such as glyphosate, or disinfectants such as triclosan.

### Chemotherapy

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The structure of sildenafil (Viagra)

The coenzyme folic acid (left) compared to the anti-cancer drug methotrexate (right)
The structure of a complex between penicillin G and the Streptomyces transpeptidase. Generated from PDB 1PWC.

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, 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, which is unrelated to the type of enzyme inhibition discussed here. Other drugs interact with cellular targets that are not enzymes, such as ion channels or membrane receptors.

An example of a medicinal enzyme inhibitor is sildenafil (Viagra), a common treatment for male erectile dysfunction (figure, right). This compound is a potent inhibitor of cGMP specific phosphodiesterase type 5, the enzyme that degrades the signalling molecule cyclic guanosine monophosphate.[23] This signalling molecule triggers smooth muscle relaxation and allows blood flow into the corpus cavernosum, 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 to folic acid. Folic acid is the oxidised form of the substrate of dihydrofolate reductase, an enzyme that is potently inhibited by methotrexate. Methotrexate blocks the action of dihydrofolate reductase and thereby halts thymidine biosynthesis. This block of nucleotide biosynthesis is selectively toxic to rapidly growing cells, therefore methotrexate is often used in cancer chemotherapy.[24]

Drugs also are used to inhibit enzymes needed for the survival of pathogens. For example, bacteria are surrounded by a thick cell wall made of a net-like polymer called peptidoglycan. Many antibiotics such as penicillin and vancomycin inhibit the enzymes that produce and then cross-link the strands of this polymer together.[25] 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 from the bacteria Streptomyces R61 (the protein is shown as a ribbon-diagram).

Drug design 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 ribosomes in bacteria, or how they make fatty acids.

### Metabolic control

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Enzyme inhibitors are also important in metabolic control. Many metabolic pathways in the cell are inhibited by metabolites that control enzyme activity through allosteric regulation or substrate inhibition. A good example is the allosteric regulation of the glycolytic pathway. This catabolic pathway consumes glucose and produces ATP, NADH and pyruvate. A key step for the regulation of glycolysis is an early reaction in the pathway catalysed by phosphofructokinase-1 (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 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 and ADP are examples of metabolites that are allosteric activators.[26]

Physiological enzyme inhibition can also be produced by specific protein inhibitors. This mechanism occurs in the pancreas, which synthesises many digestive precursor enzymes known as zymogens. Many of these are activated by the trypsin 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 protein in the pancreas. This inhibitor binds tightly to trypsin, preventing the trypsin activity that would otherwise be detrimental to the organ.[27] 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.[28] Other examples of physiological enzyme inhibitor proteins include the barstar inhibitor of the bacterial ribonuclease barnase[29] and the inhibitors of protein phosphatases.[30]

### Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors

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Acetylcholinesterase (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 into its constituents, acetate and choline. This is somewhat unique among neurotransmitters as most, including serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, 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, physostigmine, and neostigmine, are used in the treatment of myasthenia gravis and in anaesthesia. The carbamate pesticides are also examples of reversible AChE inhibitors. The organophosphate insecticides such as malathion, parathion, and chlorpyrifos irreversibly inhibit acetylcholinesterase.

### Natural poisons

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To discourage seed predators, pulses contain trypsin inhibitors that interfere with digestion.

Animals and plants have evolved to synthesize a vast array of poisonous products including secondary metabolites, 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.[31] 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 (taxol), an organic molecule found in the Pacific yew tree, binds tightly to tubulin dimers and inhibits their assembly into microtubules in the cytoskeleton.[32]

Many natural poisons act as neurotoxins that can cause paralysis 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.[33] An example of a neurotoxin are the glycoalkaloids, from the plant species in the Solanaceae family (includes potato, tomato 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 from deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) that functions as a competitive antagonist of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors.[34]

Although many natural toxins are secondary metabolites, these poisons also include peptides and proteins. An example of a toxic peptide is alpha-amanitin, which is found in relatives of the death cap mushroom. This is a potent enzyme inhibitor, in this case preventing the RNA polymerase II enzyme from transcribing DNA.[35] The algal toxin microcystin is also a peptide and is an inhibitor of protein phosphatases.[36] This toxin can contaminate water supplies after algal blooms and is a known carcinogen that can also cause acute liver hemorrhage and death at higher doses.[37]

Proteins can also be natural poisons, such as the trypsin inhibitors (discussed above) that are found in some legumes, 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, an extremely potent protein toxin found in castor oil beans. 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.[38]

## See also

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* Allosteric regulation
* Enzyme assay
* Medicinal chemistry
* Pharmacophore
* Activity based proteomics \- a branch of proteomics that uses covalent enzyme inhibitors as reporters to monitor enzyme activity.

## References

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1. ↑ Shapiro R, Vallee BL. Interaction of human placental ribonuclease with placental ribonuclease inhibitor. Biochemistry. 1991 Feb 26;30(8):2246–55. PMID 1998683
2. ↑ Berg J., Tymoczko J. and Stryer L. (2002) Biochemistry. W. H. Freeman and Company ISBN 0-7167-4955-6
3. ↑ *Irwin H. Segel, Enzyme Kinetics : Behavior and Analysis of Rapid Equilibrium and Steady-State Enzyme Systems. Wiley–Interscience; New edition (1993), ISBN 0-471-30309-7
4. ↑ Holdgate GA. Making cool drugs hot: isothermal titration calorimetry as a tool to study binding energetics. Biotechniques. 2001 Jul;31(1):164–6 PMID 11464510
5. ↑ Leatherbarrow RJ. Using linear and non-linear regression to fit biochemical data. Trends Biochem Sci. 1990 Dec;15(12):455–8. PMID 2077683
6. ↑ Tseng SJ, Hsu JP. A comparison of the parameter estimating procedures for the Michaelis–Menten model. J Theor Biol. 1990 Aug 23;145(4):457–64. PMID 2246896
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Irwin H. Segel, Enzyme Kinetics : Behavior and Analysis of Rapid Equilibrium and Steady-State Enzyme Systems. Wiley-Interscience; New Ed edition (1993), ISBN 0-471-30309-7
8. ↑ Dixon, M. Webb, E.C., Thorne, C.J.R. and Tipton K.F., Enzymes (3rd edition) Longman, London (1979) See p. 126
9. ↑ Hsu JT, Wang HC, Chen GW, Shih SR. Antiviral drug discovery targeting to viral proteases. Curr Pharm Des. 2006; 12(11):1301–14. PMID 16611117
10. ↑ Bogoyevitch MA, Barr RK, Ketterman AJ. Peptide inhibitors of protein kinases—discovery, characterisation and use. Biochim Biophys Acta. 2005 Dec 30;1754(1–2):79–99. PMID 16182621
11. ↑ Lundblad R. L. Chemical Reagents for Protein Modification CRC Press Inc (2004) ISBN 0-8493-1983-8
12. ↑ N. Price, B. Hames, D. Rickwood (Ed.) Proteins LabFax Academic Press (1996) ISBN 0-12-564710-7
13. ↑ Maurer T, Fung HL. Comparison of Methods for Analyzing Kinetic Data From Mechanism-Based Enzyme Inactivation: Application to Nitric Oxide Synthase. AAPS PharmSci. (2000) 2(1)E8. PMID 11741224
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Poulin R, Lu L, Ackermann B, Bey P, Pegg AE. Mechanism of the irreversible inactivation of mouse ornithine decarboxylase by alpha-difluoromethylornithine. Characterization of sequences at the inhibitor and coenzyme binding sites. J Biol Chem. 1992 Jan 5;267(1):150–8. PMID 1730582
15. ↑ Szedlacsek, S.E. and Duggleby, R.G. Kinetics of slow and tight-binding inhibitors. Meth. Enzymol., (1995) 249: 144–180. PMID 7791610
16. ↑ Stone SR, Morrison JF. Mechanism of inhibition of dihydrofolate reductases from bacterial and vertebrate sources by various classes of folate analogues. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1986 Feb 14;869(3):275–85. PMID 3511964
17. ↑ Hille R, Massey V. Tight binding inhibitors of xanthine oxidase. Pharmacol Ther. 1981;14(2):249–63. PMID 4322209
18. ↑ Reardon JE. Herpes simplex virus type 1 and human DNA polymerase interactions with 2'-deoxyguanosine 5'-triphosphate analogues. Kinetics of incorporation into DNA and induction of inhibition. J Biol Chem. 1989 Nov 15;264(32):19039–44. PMID 2553730
19. ↑ J. A. Cohen, R. A. Oosterbaan and F. Berends Organophosphorus compounds Meth. Enzymol. (1967) 11, 686
20. ↑ Brenner, G. M. (2000): Pharmacology. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company. ISBN 0-7216-7757-6
21. ↑ Saravanamuthu A, Vickers TJ, Bond CS, Peterson MR, Hunter WN, Fairlamb AH. Two interacting binding sites for quinacrine derivatives in the active site of trypanothione reductase: a template for drug design. J Biol Chem. 2004 Jul 9;279(28):29493–500. PMID 15102853
22. ↑ Hunter WN. Rational drug design: a multidisciplinary approach. Mol Med Today. 1995 Apr;1(1):31, 34. PMID 9415135
23. ↑ Maggi M, Filippi S, Ledda F, Magini A, Forti G. Erectile dysfunction: from biochemical pharmacology to advances in medical therapy. Eur J Endocrinol. 2000 Aug;143(2):143–54 PMID 10913932
24. ↑ McGuire JJ. Anticancer antifolates: current status and future directions. Curr Pharm Des. 2003;9(31):2593–613. PMID 14529544
25. ↑ Katz AH, Caufield CE. Structure-based design approaches to cell wall biosynthesis inhibitors. Curr Pharm Des. 2003;9(11):857–66. PMID 12678870
26. ↑ Okar DA, Lange AJ. Fructose-2,6-bisphosphate and control of carbohydrate metabolism in eukaryotes. Biofactors. 1999;10(1):1–14.
27. ↑ Nicholas Price, Lewis Stevens, Fundamentals of Enzymology, Oxford University Press, (1999) ISBN 0-19-850229-X
28. ↑ Smyth TP. Substrate variants versus transition state analogues as noncovalent reversible enzyme inhibitors. Bioorg Med Chem. 2004 Aug 1;12(15):4081–8. PMID 15246086
29. ↑ Hartley RW. Barnase and barstar: two small proteins to fold and fit together. Trends Biochem Sci. 1989 Nov;14(11):450–4. PMID 2696173
30. ↑ Oliver CJ, Shenolikar S. Physiologic importance of protein phosphatase inhibitors. Front Biosci. 1998 Sep 1;3:D961–72. PMID 9727084
31. ↑ Tan G, Gyllenhaal C, Soejarto DD. Biodiversity as a source of anticancer drugs. Curr Drug Targets. 2006 Mar;7(3):265-77. PMID 16515527
32. ↑ Abal M, Andreu JM, Barasoain I. Taxanes: microtubule and centrosome targets, and cell cycle dependent mechanisms of action. Curr Cancer Drug Targets. 2003 Jun;3(3):193–203. PMID 12769688
33. ↑ Hostettmann K, Borloz A, Urbain A, Marston A, Natural Product Inhibitors of Acetylcholinesterase Current Organic Chemistry, 2006 May;10(8):825–47
34. ↑ DeFrates LJ, Hoehns JD, Sakornbut EL, Glascock DG, Tew AR. Antimuscarinic intoxication resulting from the ingestion of moonflower seeds. Ann Pharmacother. 2005 Jan;39(1):173-6. PMID 15572604
35. ↑ Vetter J. Toxins of Amanita phalloides. Toxicon. 1998 Jan;36(1):13–24. PMID 9604278
36. ↑ Holmes CF, Maynes JT, Perreault KR, Dawson JF, James MN. Molecular enzymology underlying regulation of protein phosphatase-1 by natural toxins. Curr Med Chem. 2002 Nov;9(22):1981–9. PMID 12369866
37. ↑ Bischoff K. The toxicology of microcystin-LR: occurrence, toxicokinetics, toxicodynamics, diagnosis and treatment. Vet Hum Toxicol. 2001 Oct;43(5):294-7. PMID 11577938
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## External links

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* Web tutorial on enzyme inhibition, Tutorial by Dr Peter Birch of the University of Paisley, containing very clear animations
* Symbolism and Terminology in Enzyme Kinetics, Recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry (NC-IUB) on enzyme inhibition terminology
* PubChem from NCBI, Database of drugs and enzyme inhibitors
* BRENDA, Database of enzymes giving lists of known inhibitors for each entry
* Enzymes, Kinetics and Diagnostic Use, On-line lecture concentrating on medical applications of enzyme inhibitors: by Dr. Michael W. King of the IU School of Medicine
* BindingDB, a public database of measured protein-ligand binding affinities.
* Enzyme Inhibition Animated Exercise (tutorial + quizzes).

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Enzymes

Activity|

* Active site
* Binding site
* Catalytic triad
* Oxyanion hole
* Enzyme promiscuity
* Catalytically perfect enzyme
* Coenzyme
* Cofactor
* Enzyme catalysis

Regulation|

* Allosteric regulation
* Cooperativity
* Enzyme inhibitor
* Enzyme activator

Classification|

* EC number
* Enzyme superfamily
* Enzyme family
* List of enzymes

Kinetics|

* Enzyme kinetics
* Eadie–Hofstee diagram
* Hanes–Woolf plot
* Lineweaver–Burk plot
* Michaelis–Menten kinetics

Types|

* EC1 Oxidoreductases (list)
* EC2 Transferases (list)
* EC3 Hydrolases (list)
* EC4 Lyases (list)
* EC5 Isomerases (list)
* EC6 Ligases (list)

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