Enzyme induction is a process in which a

molecule A molecule is a group of two or more atoms held together by attractive forces known as chemical bonds; depending on context, the term may or may not include ions which satisfy this criterion. In quantum physics, organic chemistry, and bioch ...

(''e.g.'' a drug) induces (''i.e.'' initiates or enhances) the

expression Expression may refer to: Linguistics * Expression (linguistics), a word, phrase, or sentence * Fixed expression, a form of words with a specific meaning * Idiom, a type of fixed expression * Metaphorical expression, a particular word, phrase, o ...

of an

enzyme Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products. A ...

Enzyme inhibition An enzyme inhibitor is a molecule that binds to an enzyme and blocks its activity. Enzymes are proteins that speed up chemical reactions necessary for life, in which substrate molecules are converted into products. An enzyme facilitates a sp ...

can refer to * the inhibition of the expression of the enzyme by another molecule * interference at the enzyme-level, basically with how the enzyme works. This can be

competitive inhibition Competitive inhibition is interruption of a chemical pathway owing to one chemical substance inhibiting the effect of another by competing with it for binding or bonding. Any metabolic or chemical messenger system can potentially be affected b ...

uncompetitive inhibition Uncompetitive inhibition, also known as anti-competitive inhibition, takes place when an enzyme inhibitor binds only to the complex formed between the enzyme and the substrate (biochemistry), substrate (the E-S complex). Uncompetitive inhibition ...

, non-competitive inhibition or partially competitive inhibition. If the molecule induces enzymes that are responsible for its own

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

, this is called auto-induction (or auto-inhibition if there is inhibition). These processes are particular forms of gene expression regulation. These terms are of particular interest to

pharmacology Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemica ...

, and more specifically to

drug metabolism Drug metabolism is the metabolic breakdown of drugs by living organisms, usually through specialized enzymatic systems. More generally, xenobiotic metabolism (from the Greek xenos "stranger" and biotic "related to living beings") is the set of ...

and

drug interaction Drug interactions occur when a drug's mechanism of action is disturbed by the concomitant administration of substances such as foods, beverages, or other drugs. The cause is often the inhibition of the specific receptors available to the drug, ...

s. They also apply to

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

History

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the French molecular biologists

François Jacob François Jacob (17 June 1920 – 19 April 2013) was a French biologist who, together with Jacques Monod, originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells occurs through regulation of transcription. He shared the 1965 Nobel Prize i ...

and

Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 – May 31, 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of en ...

became the first to explain enzyme induction, in the context of the

lac operon The ''lactose'' operon (''lac'' operon) is an operon required for the transport and metabolism of lactose in ''E. coli'' and many other enteric bacteria. Although glucose is the preferred carbon source for most bacteria, the ''lac'' operon allows ...

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

. In the absence of lactose, the constitutively expressed

lac repressor The ''lac'' repressor (LacI) is a DNA-binding protein that inhibits the expression of genes coding for proteins involved in the metabolism of lactose in bacteria. These genes are repressed when lactose is not available to the cell, ensuring th ...

protein binds to the operator region of the DNA and prevents the transcription of the operon genes. When present, lactose binds to the lac repressor, causing it to separate from the DNA and thereby enabling transcription to occur. Monod and Jacob generated this theory following 15 years of work by them and others (including

Joshua Lederberg Joshua () or Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' lit. 'Yahweh is salvation') ''Yēšūaʿ''; syr, ܝܫܘܥ ܒܪ ܢܘܢ ''Yəšūʿ bar Nōn''; el, Ἰησοῦς, ar , يُوشَعُ ٱبْنُ نُونٍ '' Yūšaʿ ...

), partially as an explanation for Monod's observation of diauxie. Previously, Monod had hypothesized that enzymes could physically adapt themselves to new substrates; a series of experiments by him, Jacob, and

Arthur Pardee Arthur Beck Pardee (July 13, 1921 – February 24, 2019) was an American biochemist. One biographical portrait begins "Among the titans of science, Arthur Pardee is especially intriguing." There is hardly a field of molecular biology that is not ...

eventually demonstrated this to be incorrect and led them to the modern theory, for which he and Jacob shared the 1965

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

(together with

André Lwoff André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a variation o ...

). *

Aryl hydrocarbon receptor The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (also known as AhR, AHR, ahr, ahR, or dioxin receptor) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the AHR gene. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor is a transcription factor that regulates gene expression. It was originall ...

Potency

Index inducer or just inducer predictably induce metabolism via a given pathway and are commonly used in prospective clinical drug-drug interaction studies. Strong, moderate, and weak inducers are drugs that decreases the AUC of

sensitive index substrates In chemistry, the term substrate is highly context-dependent. Broadly speaking, it can refer either to a chemical species being observed in a chemical reaction, or to a surface on which other chemical reactions or microscopy are performed. In the ...

of a given metabolic pathway by ≥80%, ≥50% to <80%, and ≥20% to <50%, respectively.

References

External links

* {{MeshName, Enzymologic+Gene+Expression+Regulation Pharmacokinetics Gene expression