Question

2a. What is meant by allosteric regulation of enzymes? Include key/relevant terms (Enzyme, active site, effector, secondary site, conformational change, affinity and other terms you feel are relevant).

b. Describe/draw, in detail, two mechanisms of inhibitory allosteric regulation (aka allosteric inhibition)

c. Describe/draw, in detail, two mechanisms of excitatory allosteric regulation (aka allosteric activation)

Answer 1

a. The allosteric enzyme is an enzyme that has an active site which is the primary site along with the allosteric site a secondary site where an enzyme regulator can bind. There are two types of regulators- activators that increases the activity of the enzyme and inhibitors that decrease the activity of the enzymes. The regulator that increases or decreases the activity of the enzyme is called its effector. These are able to produce a conformational change which either increases the affinity of the substrate towards the active site of the enzyme or decreases its affinity towards the active site of the enzyme.

b,c