The compound you identified in Problem 9 resembles glutamate and might therefore competitively inhibit glutamate transamination. How would this affect citric acid cycle activity?

The process of cleaving the amino group from glutamate is known as transamination reaction.In transamination reaction, the glutamate is converted to ketoglutarate and the pyruvate accepts the resultant amino group and converts it to alanine.

The efficiency of catabolizing the acetyl groups produced from pyruvate by reactions of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex in the citric acid cycle is determined by transamination reaction. As a result, more ATP is produced in order to fuel muscle contractions.

An enzyme can bind either substrate or inhibitor in the situation of competitive inhibition. In this case, the competitive inhibitor (2-hydroxyglutarate) binds to the enzyme's active site and resembles the substrate (glutamate).

As a result, glutamate transamination is inhibited. This causes the production of ATP to decrease and thereby, the activity of citric acid cycle decreases.