Enzymes feedback

Many enzymes xmAexgo feedback inhibition, in which a high concentration of enzyme reaction prodnct slows down or stops enzyme activity. Compare the action of a furnace thermostat to enzyme feedback inhibition. 

Catecholamine biosynthesis begins with the uptake of the amino acid tyrosine into the sympathetic neuronal cytoplasm, and conversion to DOPA by tyrosine hydroxylase. This enzyme is highly localized to the adrenal medulla, sympathetic nerves, and central adrenergic and dopaminergic nerves. Tyrosine hydroxylase activity is subject to feedback inhibition by its products DOPA, NE, and DA, and is the rate-limiting step in catecholamine synthesis the enzyme can be blocked by the competitive inhibitor a-methyl-/)-tyrosine (31). 

Hundreds of metabohc reac tions take place simultaneously in cells. There are branched and parallel pathways, and a single biochemical may participate in sever distinct reactions. Through mass action, concentration changes caused by one reac tion may effect the kinetics and equilibrium concentrations of another. In order to prevent accumulation of too much of a biochemical, the product or an intermediate in the pathway may slow the production of an enzyme or may inhibit the ac tivation of enzymes regulating the pathway. This is termed feedback control and is shown in Fig. 24-1. More complicated examples are known where two biochemicals ac t in concert to inhibit an enzyme. As accumulation of excessive amounts of a certain biochemical may be the key to economic success, creating mutant cultures with defective metabolic controls has great value to the produc tion of a given produc t. 

FIG. 24-1 Feedback control. Product inhibits the first enzyme. 

Figure 6.24 The function of the enzyme phosphofructokinase. (a) Phosphofructokinase is a key enzyme in the gycolytic pathway, the breakdown of glucose to pyruvate. One of the end products in this pathway, phosphoenolpyruvate, is an allosteric feedback inhibitor to this enzyme and ADP is an activator, (b) Phosphofructokinase catalyzes the phosphorylation by ATP of fructose-6-phosphate to give fructose-1,6-bisphosphate. (c) Phosphoglycolate, which has a structure similar to phosphoenolpyruvate, is also an inhibitor of the enzyme.

The trp repressor controls the operon for the synthesis of L-tryptophan in Escherichia coli by a simple negative feedback loop. In the absence of L-tryptophan, the repressor is inactive, the operon is switched on and the enzymes which synthesize L-tryptophan are produced. As the concentration of L-tryptophan increases, it binds to the repressor and converts it to an active form so that it can bind to the operator region and switch off the gene. 

In this scheme, F symbolizes an essential metabolite, such as an amino acid or a nucleotide. In such systems, F, the essential end product, inhibits enzyme 1, xAie first step in the pathway. Therefore, when sufficient F is synthesized, it blocks further synthesis of itself. This phenomenon is called feedback inhibition or feedback regulation. 

Enzymes such as enzyme 1, which are subject to feedback regulation, represent a distinct class of enzymes, the regulatory enzymes. As a class, these enzymes have certain exceptional properties ... 

Inhibition of a regulatory enzyme by a feedback inhibitor does not conform to any normal inhibition pattern, and the feedback inhibitor F bears little structural similarity to A, the substrate for the regulatory enzyme. F apparently acts at a binding site distinct from the substrate-binding site. The term allosteric is apt, because F is sterically dissimilar and, moreover, acts at a site other than the site for S. Its effect is called allosteric Inhibition. 

In die metabolic pathway to an amino add several steps are involved. Each step is die result of an enzymatic activity. The key enzymatic activity (usually die first enzyme in the synthesis) is regulated by one of its products (usually die end product, eg die amino add). If die concentration of die amino add is too high die enzymatic activity is decreased by interaction of die inhibitor with the regulatory site of die enzyme (allosteric enzyme). This phenomenon is called feedback inhibition. 

Production of phenylalanine starts after depletion of tyrosine at about 6 hours. This is logical since the micro-oiganism needs a certain amount of tyrosine, for example to synthesise key enzymes, but synthesis of L-phenylalanine is feedback regulated if tyrosine is present. 

Enzymes in the pathway to L-phenylalanine are subject to feedback inhibition by products (amino adds) arising from pathway intermediates. 

Auxotrophic mutant lack one or more enzymes involved in the synthesis of amino acids (such as tyrosine). This prevents accumulation of the amino acid and thus avoids feedback inhibition of enzymatic steps in the L-phenylalanine pathway. 

Factor Xlla converts prekallikrein to kallikrein and kallikrein cleaves HK to generate bradykinin. There is also an important positive feedback in the system in which the kallikrein generated rapidly converts unactivated factor XII to activated factor XII, and the rate of this reaction is hundreds of times faster than the rate of autoactivation [11]. Therefore, much of the unactivated factor XII can be cleaved and activated by kallikrein. Cl inhibitor inhibits all functions of factor Xlla and it is one of two major plasma kallikrein inhibitors. Thus all functions of kallikrein are also inhibited, including the feedback activation of factor XII, the cleavage of HK, and the activation of plasma pro-urokinase [66] to lead to plasmin formation. Cl inhibitor also inhibits the fibrinolytic enzyme plasmin, although it is a relatively minor inhibitor compared to a2-antiplasmin or a2-macroglobulin. 

Feedback inhibition refers to inhibition of an enzyme in a biosynthetic pathway by an end product of that pathway. For example, for the biosynthesis of D from A catalyzed by enzymes EnZj through Enz3,... 

Figure 9-4. Sites of feedback inhibition in a branched biosynthetic pathway. Si-Sj are intermediates in the biosynthesis of end products A-D. Straight arrows represent enzymes catalyzing the indicated conversions. Curved arrows represent feedback loops and indicate sites of feedback inhibition by specific end products.

Figure 9-5. Multiple feedback inhibition in a branched biosynthetic pathway. Superimposed on simple feedback loops (dashed, curved arrows) are multiple feedback loops (solid, curved arrows) that regulate enzymes common to biosynthesis of several end products.

The lack of structural similarity between a feedback inhibitor and the substrate for the enzyme whose activity it regulates suggests that these effectors are not isosteric with a substrate but allosteric ( occupy another space ). Jacques Monod therefore proposed the existence of allosteric sites that are physically distinct from the catalytic site. Allosteric enzymes thus are those whose activity at the active site may be modulated by the presence of effectors at an allosteric site. This hypothesis has been confirmed by many lines of evidence, including x-ray crystallography and site-directed mutagenesis, demonstrating the existence of spatially distinct active and allosteric sites on a variety of enzymes. 

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