Inhibition of rabbit lung angiotensin converting enzyme by idrapril.

Idrapril, the prototype of a new class of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, competitively inhibited, with nanomolar apparent Ki, the hydrolysis of hippuryl-glycyl-glycine by rabbit lung ACE. The pre-steady-state analysis of this tight-binding inhibition showed it to be characterized by slow kinetics, but at variance with what was found for enalaprilat in the same conditions, idrapril appeared to act through a simple, single step mechanism. Kinetic Ki and k(on) and k(off) values were 470 pM, 3.0 +/- 1.5 x 10(6) M-1 sec-1 and 1.4 +/- 0.3 x 10(-3) sec-1, respectively.