Enzyme Inhibitors and Activators

Enzymes are very effective biological catalysts that accelerate almost all metabolic reactions in living organisms. Enzyme inhibitors and activators that modulate the velocity of enzymatic reactions play an important role in the regulation of metabolism. Enzyme inhibitors are also useful tool for study of enzymatic reaction as well as for design of new medicine drugs. In this chapter, we focused on the properties of enzyme inhibitors and activators. Here we present canonical inhibitor classification based on their kinetic behavior and mechanism of action. We also considered enzyme inhibitors that were used for design of various types of pharmacological drugs and natural inhibitors as a plausible source for design of future drugs. Mechanisms of action of enzyme activators and some features of allosteric modulators are considered