Love and... Enzyme activity?!?
Suppose Mr. Gutierrez has a girlfriend. Now, Mr. Gutierrez likes another girl. What can be said about his affinity to his girlfriend? It would seem that the two girls are competing. This then lowers Mr. Gutierrez and his girlfriend's affinities to each other, therefore lowering the chances of them being together.
Coincidentally, this is exactly how Competitive Inhibitors change the kinetics of enzymes. They are structural analogues of the substrate, lowering the affinity of the enzyme and substrate.
Now suppose another girl likes Mr. Gutierrez. She latches on to him, making it difficult to reach his girlfriend. It doesn't look like the two are competing, since Mr. Gutierrez still likes his girlfriend. It's just that getting to her is a bit difficult.
... And this is exactly how a non-competitive inhibitor changes the kinetics of an enzyme. It latches onto it, changes its conformation, making it more difficult to attach to a substrate.
Funny how Dr. Nicolas chose that analogy... The funnier thing is that she chose me of all people to use the analogy on.
I know it's been ages since this lesson (and this analogy) was brought out in Biochem 14 class. But it never fails to amuse me (mainly because Mr. Gutierrez doesn't have a girlfriend to speak of). I remembered it this afternoon since we were working on our 14.1 lab reports on enzyme kinetics.
(Dr. Nicolas, of course, has funnier jokes.... None of them involving me).
Coincidentally, this is exactly how Competitive Inhibitors change the kinetics of enzymes. They are structural analogues of the substrate, lowering the affinity of the enzyme and substrate.
Now suppose another girl likes Mr. Gutierrez. She latches on to him, making it difficult to reach his girlfriend. It doesn't look like the two are competing, since Mr. Gutierrez still likes his girlfriend. It's just that getting to her is a bit difficult.
... And this is exactly how a non-competitive inhibitor changes the kinetics of an enzyme. It latches onto it, changes its conformation, making it more difficult to attach to a substrate.
Funny how Dr. Nicolas chose that analogy... The funnier thing is that she chose me of all people to use the analogy on.
I know it's been ages since this lesson (and this analogy) was brought out in Biochem 14 class. But it never fails to amuse me (mainly because Mr. Gutierrez doesn't have a girlfriend to speak of). I remembered it this afternoon since we were working on our 14.1 lab reports on enzyme kinetics.
(Dr. Nicolas, of course, has funnier jokes.... None of them involving me).