Cytochrome P450 enzyme highlighting haem

3D Model

An important component of pharmacokinetics is that of drug metabolism.

A drug will be processed by enzymes as a means of (a) de-toxifying it and switching off its pharmacological activity and (b) preparing for its excretion from the body. A common first step in drug metabolic processes is mediated by cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes that use a haem molecule at their active site to facilitate oxidation of drug molecules (in this 3D model, the drug is the antibiotic erythromycin)

(I have used Blender to adapt a published x-ray crystallographic structure on the RCSB protein database: https://www.rcsb.org/structure/2j0d)