Enzyme inhibition/inhibitors mechanism-based

Irreversible inhibitors combine or destroy a functional group on the enzyme so that it is no longer active. They often act by covalently modifying the enzyme. Thus a new enzyme needs to be synthesized. Examples of irreversible inhibitors include acetylsal-icyclic acid, which irreversibly inhibits cyclooxygenase in prostaglandin synthesis. Organophosphates (e.g., malathion, 8.10) irreversibly inhibit acetylcholinesterase. Suicide inhibitors (mechanism-based inactivators) are a special class of irreversible inhibitors. They are relatively unreactive until they bind to the active site of the enzyme, and then they inactivate the enzyme. 

Figure 2.10. Mechanism of enzyme inhibition by saccharin based inhibitors. Only if R contains a leaving group, eg. (15-4), does the inhibitor progress to a dicovalently linked enzyme.

Structure-activity relationship studies of ethynyl-PAH compounds (Scheme 13) showed that, while all compounds that were tested were competitive inhibitors of cytochrome P450 1 A, only very few analogs inhibited the enzyme in a mechanism-based fashion. Thus, while methyl-1-pyrenylacetylene and 3-ethynylperylene are suicide inhibitors of benzo(a)pyrene hydroxylation, phenyl-1-pyrenylacetylene is only a competitive inhibitor . ... 

MAO inhibitors with a propargylamine moiety inhibit the enzyme in a mechanism-based fashion. They first bind competitively to MAO and then are oxidized by the FAD moiety of the enzyme to active intermediates which bind quantitatively to C-5 of the FAD isoalloxazine ring (Scheme 17) (for review see Gerlach and coworkers ). Since this deactivation reaction is irreversible and quantitative, chlorgyline and selegiline have been used to map and quantitate MAO A and MAO B activities in the tissues of various animal species Most of the quantitation of MAO A and B in human brains was done... 

Mechanisms of CYP inhibition can be broadly divided into two categories reversible inhibition and mechanism-based inactivation. Depending on the mode of interaction between CYP enzymes and inhibitors, reversible CYP inhibition is further characterized as competitive, noncompetitive, uncompetitive, and mixed (Ito et al., 1998b). Evaluation of reversible inhibition of CYP reactions is often conducted under conditions where M-M kinetics is obeyed. Based on the scheme illustrated in Fig. 5.1, various types of reversible inhibition are summarized in Table 5.1. Figure 5.1 depicts a simple substrate-enzyme complex during catalysis. In the presence of a reversible inhibitor, such a complex can be disrupted leading to enzyme inhibition. 

Inhibitors of the catalytic activities of enzymes provide both pharmacologic agents and research tools for study of the mechanism of enzyme action. Inhibitors can be classified based upon their site of action on the enzyme, on whether or not they chemically modify the enzyme, or on the kinetic parameters they influence. KineticaUy, we distinguish two classes of inhibitors based upon whether raising the substrate concentration does or does not overcome the inhibition. 

The starting point for much of the work described in this article is the idea that quinone methides (QMs) are the electrophilic species that are generated from ortho-hydro-xybenzyl halides during the relatively selective modification of tryptophan residues in proteins. Therefore, a series of suicide substrates (a subtype of mechanism-based inhibitors) that produce quinone or quinonimine methides (QIMs) have been designed to inhibit enzymes. The concept of mechanism-based inhibitors was very appealing and has been widely applied. The present review will be focused on the inhibition of mammalian serine proteases and bacterial serine (3-lactamases by suicide inhibitors. These very different classes of enzymes have however an analogous step in their catalytic mechanism, the formation of an acyl-enzyme intermediate. Several studies have examined the possible use of quinone or quinonimine methides as the latent... 

The functionalized phenaceturates 16 (Fig. 11.10) are substrates of class A and C [3-lactamases, especially the class C enzymes, as observed with the parent unfunctionalized phenaceturates 15. They are also modest inhibitors of these enzymes and the serine DD-peptidase of Streptomyces R61. The inhibition of class C [3-lactamases is turnover dependent, as expected for a mechanism-based inhibitor. Inhibition is not very dependent on the nature of the leaving group, suggesting that the QM is generated in solution after the product phenol has been released from the active site. It therefore... 

Two laboratories have independently disclosed an interesting series of mechanism-based inhibitors. The dihydropyrrole 31, which appeared in a patent application [61], was reported to inhibit rat lung SSAO/VAP-1 with an IC50 = 500 nM. Recently, the Sayre team extended earlier work [74] and showed that these inhibitors, exemplified by 32, covalently bound to the enzyme with the cofactor in the reduced form [75]. Presumably, aromatization of the dihydropyrrole moiety accounts for the observed potencies. 

The biogenic amines are the preferred substrates of MAO. The enzyme comes in two flavors, MAO-A and MAO-B, both of which, like FMO, rely on the redox properties of FAD for their oxidative machinery. The two isoforms share a sequence homology of approximately 70% (81) and are found in the outer mitochondrial membrane, but they differ in substrate selectivity and tissue distribution. In mammalian tissues MAO-A is located primarily in the placenta, gut, and liver, while MAO-B is predominant in the brain, liver, and platelets. MAO-A is selective for serotonin and norepinephrine and is selectively inhibited by the mechanism-based inhibitor clorgyline (82). MAO-B is selective for /1-phcncthylaminc and tryptamine, and it is selectively inhibited by the mechanism-based inhibitors, deprenyl and pargyline (82) (Fig. 4.32). Recently, both MAO-A (83) and MAO-B (84) were structurally characterized by x-ray crystallography. 

Sometimes CYPs can also produce reactive metabolite species that, instead of undergoing the normal detoxification pathway, can act as irreversible CYP inhibitors, thus causing toxicity. Such reactive metabolites that cause CYP inactivation are called MBI and are described in Chapter 9. Mechanism-based enzyme inhibition is associated with irreversible or quasi-irreversible loss of enzyme function, requiring synthesis of new enzymes before activity is restored. The consequences of MBI could be auto-inhibition of the clearance of the inactivator itself or prolonged inhibition of the clearance of other drugs that are cleared by the same isozyme. There may also be serious immunotoxicological consequences if a reactive intermediate is covalently bound to the enzyme. Therefore, screening of new compounds for MBI is now a standard practice within the pharmaceutical industry. 

Much early effort in 5-LO inhibition centered on substrate and product analogues. One goal, especially of the Corey group at Harvard, was to study the 5-LO reaction by creating mechanism-based irreversible inhibitors, or by removing the substrate protons which are abstracted by the enzyme. These approaches, which included preparation of acetylenic, methylated, cyclized, or thia-analogues of arachidonic acid, and cyclopropyl analogues... 

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