An enzyme inhibitor is a molecule that binds to an enzyme and decreases/demolishes its activity.
By binding to enzymes’ active sites or allosteric sites, inhibitors reduce the compatibility of substrate and enzyme and this leads to the inhibition of Enzyme-Substrate complexes’ formation, preventing the production of the product
Types of inhibition
Between the inhibition we distinguish:
- reversible
- irreversible
inhibitions. (Figure 1)
Reversible - Competitive inhibition
The structure of the inhibitor is similar to the structure of the substrate and competes