Question

Why is competitive and noncompetitive inhibition important? One example for each.

I know of examples of why inhibition is detrimental to different necessary enzyme processes in the body, but I am having difficulty thinking about why they are important?

Answer 1

In competitive inhibition the inhibitor molecules resembles the substrate thereby blocking its activity.It is important because it is through competitive inhibition that formation of many toxic substances are prevented

Example : Methrotrxate binding to enzyme dihydrofolate reductase and acting as an antimetabolite in chemotherapy.

Non competitive inhibition is important because they play an important role in the regulation of metabolism where the products of metabolism act as non competitive inhibitors.The regulation is through negative feedback loop

Example : ATP acting as non competitive inhibitor of pyruvate kinase in glycolysis