Question

Is penicillin an enzyme inhibitor?

Answer 1

Penicillin:

1. Penicillin is an antibiotic that helps to kill a lot of bacteria.
2. Penicillin helps to destroy the peptidoglycan present in the cell wall.
3. The beta-lactam ring present in penicillin helps to kill bacteria by inhibiting the crosslinking in the cell walls.
4. It inhibits the enzyme transpeptidase which catalyzes the last stage of biosynthesis of the cell wall of bacteria.
5. Hence, it acts as a suicide inhibitor as a result of binding with enzyme transpeptidase, it inactivates itself.
6. Few of the bacteria can develop resistance to beta-lactams.