Tight-binding enzyme inhibitors

Slow, tight-binding inhibition occurs when slow-binding inhibition takes place at inhibitor concentrations comparable to that of the enzyme, in which case the previous two mechanisms can still apply. Comprehensive review articles on the subject of tight, slow, and slow, tight-binding inhibitors ate available in the literature (12,14). 

Thus plots of IC50 as a function of [ TPP under conditions of Strauss and Goldstein s zone B allow one to simultaneously determine the values of Kfpp and [E T using Equations (7.13) and (7.15). Later in this chapter we will see other methods by which tight binding inhibitors can be used to provide accurate determinations of the total concentration of catalytically active enzyme in a sample. 

Figure 7.6 Double reciprocal plot for a tight binding competitive enzyme inhibitor, demonstrating the curvature of such plots. The dashed lines represent an attempt to fit the data at lower substrate concentrations to linear equations. This highlights how double reciprocal plots for tight binding inhibitors can be misleading, especially when data are collected only over a limited range of substrate concentrations.

The very slow dissociation rates for tight binding inhibitors offer some potential clinical advantages for such compounds, as described in detail in Chapter 6. Experimental determination of the value of k, can be quite challenging for these inhibitors. We have detailed in Chapters 5 and 6 several kinetic methods for estimating the value of the dissociation rate constant. When the value of kofS is extremely low, however, alternative methods may be required to estimate this kinetic constant. For example, equilibrium dialysis over the course of hours, or even days, may be required to achieve sufficient inhibitor release from the El complex for measurement. A significant issue with approaches like this is that the enzyme may not remain stable over the extended time course of such experiments. In some cases of extremely slow inhibitor dissociation, the limits of enzyme stability will preclude accurate determination of koff the best that one can do in these cases is to provide an upper limit on the value of this rate constant. 

These practical approaches are by no means mutually exclusive, and attempts should be made to combine as many of these as possible to improve ones ability to experimentally measure the K-pp of tight binding inhibitors. Thus one should always work at the lowest enzyme concentration possible, and drive the substrate concentration as high as possible, when dealing with competitive inhibitors. A long preincubation step should be used before activity measurements, or the progress curves should be fitted to Equation (6.2) so that accurate determinations of the steady state velocity at each inhibitor concentration can be obtained. Finally, the concentration-response data should be fitted to Morrison s quadratic equation to obtain good estimates of the value of Arfpp. 

ENZYME-REACTION INTERMEDIATE ANALOGUES AS EXAMPLES OF TIGHT BINDING INHIBITORS... 

In Section 7.2 we presented one method for determining E T from the effects of apparent enzyme concentration on the measured value of IC50 for tight binding inhibitors. Another convenient way to determine [E T derives from the nature of Morrison s equation. When the ratio E T/A (PP equals or exceeds 200, the fractional velocity decreases very steeply with increasing inhibitor concentration, in an essen-... 

Figure 7.13 Fractional velocity of as a function of tight binding inhibitor concentration in an assay for which the enzyme concentration is fixed so that [E j/Kf9 > 200 (i.e., zone C of Strauss and Goldstein, 1943). The point at which the linear concentration-response line intersects the x-axis indicates the concentration of active enzyme in the sample.

Thus, by either titrating tight binding inhibitor concentration at a high, fixed enzyme concentration, and vice versa, one can obtain highly accurate estimates of the total enzyme concentration in a sample. These methods are commonly used to... 

Until now our discussions of enzyme inhibition have dealt with compounds that interact with binding pockets on the enzyme molecule through reversible forces. Hence inhibition by these compounds is always reversed by dissociation of the inhibitor from the binary enzyme-inhibitor complex. Even for very tight binding inhibitors, the interactions that stabilize the enzyme-inhibitor complex are mediated by reversible forces, and therefore the El complex has some, nonzero rate of dissociation—even if this rate is too slow to be experimentally measured. In this chapter we turn our attention to compounds that interact with an enzyme molecule in such a way as to permanendy ablate enzyme function. We refer to such compounds as enzyme inactivators to stress the mechanistic distinctions between these molecules and reversible enzyme inhibitors. 

In addition to its broad-spectrum biocidal activity, triclosan (22) displays reversible inhibition of E. coli Fabl with a picomolar K, for binding the enzyme-cofactor complex [4]. Triclosan entry results in the reordering of a loop of amino acids close to the active site, making it a slow, tight-binding inhibitor [41]. 

Plots devised by Dixon to determine K, for tight-binding inhibitors, (a) A primary plot of v versus total inhibitor present ([/Id yields a concave line. In this example, [S] = 3 x Km and thus v = 67% of Straight lines drawn from Vo (when [/It = 0) through points corresponding to Vq/2, Vq/3, etc. intersect with the x-axis at points separated by a distance /Cj app/ when inhibition is competitive. When inhibition is noncompetitive, intersection points are separated by a distance equivalent to K. The positions of lines for n = 1 and n = 0 can then be deduced and the total enzyme concentration, [EJt, can be determined from the distance between the origin and the intersection point of the n = 0 line on the x-axis. If inhibition is competitive, this experiment is repeated at several different substrate concentrations such that a value for K, app is obtained at each substrate concentration. (b) Values for app are replotted versus [S], and the y-intercept yields a value for /Cj. If inhibition is noncompetitive, this replot is not necessary (see text)... 

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