Errors in metabolic regulation. A common group of metabolic disorders.

It is postulated that errors in metabolic regulation occur when aminoacid subsitutions or conformational changes occur at allosteric sites on proteins. The cell thus contains its full complement of enzymes, carrier proteins, and receptors, but these proteins do not respond normally to microenvironmental agents such as hormones or activator or inhibitor metabolites. Regulatory errors differ from the classical inborn errors in a number of respects: they can be acquired as well as inherited, when due to defects at allosteric inhibitory sites they lead to loss of regulation of metabolic pathways with oversynthesis of metabolic products without gross accumulation of abnormal intermediates, and they can be treated, in principle, by enzyme inhibitors rather than by enzyme replacement, as for inborn errors.