Question

Ethanol (CH3CH2OH) is the alcohol found in beverages. It is oxidized in the body to

Answer 1

Answer:

B) Ethanol must act as a competitive inhibitor for the alcohol dehydrogenase and therefore slows the formation of formaldehyde.

Explanation:

An inhibitor is a substance that binds to an enzime and prevents it to react with a substrate. In this case, the inhibitor is ethanol, binding to the enzime (alcohol dehydrogenase) and preventing it to react with methanol and thus from it form the toxic formaldehyde.

A competitive inhibitor has a similar structure to the substrate, that is why it binds to the same active site. In this case, ethanol has a similar structure to methanol, which is why the answer is B and not A.