Structure-based drug design has led to the discovery of a number of glucose analogue inhibitors of glycogen phosphorylase that have an increased affinity compared to a-D-glucose (Ki = 1.7 mM). The best inhibitor in the class of N-acyl derivatives of P-D-glucopyranosylamine, N-acetyl-P-D-glucopyranosylamine (I-GlcNAc), has been characterized by kinetic, ultracentrifugation, and crystallographic studies. 1-GlcNAc acts as a competitive inhibitor for both the b (K, = 32 pM) and the a ( K , = 35 PM) forms of the enzyme with respect to glucose I-phosphate and in synergism with caffeine, mimicking the binding of glucose. Sedimentation velocity experiments demonstrated that 1-GlcNAc was able to induce dissociation of tetrameric phosphorylase a and stabilization of the dimeric T-state conformation. Co-crystals of the phosphorylase b-I-GlcNAc-IMP complex were grown in space group P432,2, with native-like unit cell dimensions, and the complex structure has been refined to give a crystallographic R factor of 18.1 %, for data between 8 and 2.3 A resolution. I-GlcNAc binds tightly at the catalytic site of T-state phosphorylase b at approximately the same position as that of a-D-glucose. The ligand can be accommodated in the catalytic site with very little change in the protein structure and stabilizes the T-state conformation of the 280s loop by making several favorable contacts to Asn 284 of this loop. Structural comparisons show that the T-state phosphorylase b-I-GlcNAc-IMP complex structure is overall similar to the T-state phosphorylase b-a-D-glucose complex structure. The structure of the I-GlcNAc complex provides a rational for the biochemical properties of the inhibitor.