Understandings:
- Metabolic pathways consist of chains and cycles of enzyme-catalysed reactions.
- Enzymes lower the activation energy of the chemical reactions that they catalyse.
- Enzyme inhibitors can be competitive or non-competitive.
- Metabolic pathways can be controlled by end-product inhibition.
Applications and skills:
- Application: End-product inhibition of the pathway that converts threonine to isoleucine.
- Application: Use of databases to identify potential new anti-malarial drugs.
- Skill: Calculating and plotting rates of reaction from raw experimental results.
- Skill: Distinguishing different types of inhibition from graphs at specified substrate concentration.
Guidance:
- Enzyme inhibition should be studied using one specific example for competitive and non-competitive inhibition.
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Theory of knowledge:
- Many metabolic pathways have been described following a series of carefully controlled and repeated experiments. To what degree can looking at component parts give us knowledge of the whole?
Utilization:
- Many enzyme inhibitors have been used in medicine. For example ethanol has been used to act as a competitive inhibitor for antifreeze poisoning.
- Fomepizole, which is an inhibitor of alcohol dehydrogenase, has also been used for antifreeze poisoning.
- Syllabus and cross-curricular links:
- Biology
- Topic 2.7 DNA replication, transcription and translation
- Chemistry
- Topic 6.1 Collision theory and rates of reaction
Aims:
- Aim 6: Experiments on enzyme inhibition can be performed.
- Aim 7: Computer simulations on enzyme action including metabolic inhibition are available.
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