Biochemistry Questions / Explain how allosteric feedback inhibition can be overcome with anti-metabolites using LysC as an example.

Antimetabolites are competitive inhibitors of a metabolite involved in feedback inhibition of a biosynthetic pathway. This can allow allosteric feedback inhibition to be overcome, by reducing the number of enzymes ‘deactivated’ by high concentrations of the product.

However, very high concentrations of the product will reduce the effect of using an anti-metabolite. This will lead to increased suppression of the activity of the pathway as the concentration of product increases, due to increased competition.