Tyrosinase inhibitory Tyrosine

It has also been observed that tryptophan, like dopa, inhibits tyrosine hydroxylase and dopa oxidase activity of melanosomal tyrosinase and that its inhibitory mechanism differs from inhibition caused by non-substrate type compounds like cysteine and ascorbic acid (36). In fact, tyrosinase is inhibited by its own substrate in vitro and this inhibition mechanism differs from that caused by cysteine and ascorbic acid (242, 268). 

Parahydroxyphenylpyruvic, phenylacetic, and phenyllactic acids inhibit tyrosinase, but whereas the first of these compounds is a potent inhibitor, the others are only weak inhibitors. It seems that if this inhibitory effect were important in phenylketonuria, pigment metabolism would be more apparently altered in tyrosinosis than in phenylketonuria, which seems not to be the case. However, the enzyme block might explain why small doses or dietary amounts of tyrosine have no effect on the pigmentation of patients with phenylketonuria. Only when large doses of the amino acid are administered are pigmentation and epinephrine biosynthesis restored to normal, probably because tyrosine competes with phenylalanine metabolites for melanocyte tyrosinase and dopa decarboxylase. 

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