GRE Subject Test: Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology › Help with Enzyme Modification
Which of the following is an example of allosteric regulation of enzymes?
The non-covalent binding of cAMP somewhere other than the active site
Phosphorylation of an amino acid in the active site
Phosphorylation of an amino acid somewhere other than the active site
The non-covalent binding of cAMP to the active site
The difference between the binding of cAMP and phosphorylation is that the latter is a covalent modification. Covalent modifications are a different way to regulate proteins, and do not fall under the category of allosteric regulation. Allosteric regulation only occurs outside of the active site, often simply called an allosteric site. The non-covalent binding of cAMP to a region of an enzyme outside of the active site thus qualifies as allosteric regulation.