Blocking Enzymes

Inhibitors as medicines

An interactive lesson with 4 steps, about 5 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Competitive inhibitors raise apparent Km: Km(1 + [I]/Ki).
• Irreversible (covalent) inhibitors like aspirin and penicillin outlast the drug.
• Good targets exist in the pathogen but not in us.

Steps

1. Jam the machine
2. How much inhibitor?
3. Aspirin’s trick
4. Penicillin