Competitive inhibition is a form of enzyme inhibition where binding of the inhibitor to the active site on the enzyme prevents binding of the substrate and vice versa.
Most competitive inhibitors function by binding reversibly to the active site of the enzyme. As a result, many sources state that this is this defining feature of competitive inhibitors. This, however, is a misleading oversimplification, as there are many possible mechanisms by which an enzyme may bind either the inhibitor or the substrate but never both at the same time. For example, allosteric inhibitors may display competitive, non-competitive, or uncompetitive inhibition.
Read more about Competitive Inhibition: Mechanism, Equation, Derivation
Famous quotes containing the word competitive:
“The shift from the perception of the child as innocent to the perception of the child as competent has greatly increased the demands on contemporary children for maturity, for participating in competitive sports, for early academic achievement, and for protecting themselves against adults who might do them harm. While children might be able to cope with any one of those demands taken singly, taken together they often exceed children’s adaptive capacity.”
—David Elkind (20th century)