Two analogues of pyruvate, acetylphosphinate and acetylmethylphosphinate were tested as inhibitors of the E1 (pyruvate dehydrogenase) component of the human and Escherichia coli pyruvate dehydrogenase complexes. This is the first instance of such studies on the human enzyme. The acetylphosphinate is a stronger inhibitor of both enzymes (Ki < 1 microM) than acetylmethylphosphinate. Both inhibitors are found to be reversible tight-binding inhibitors. With both inhibitors and with both enzymes, the inhibition apparently takes place by formation of a C2alpha-phosphinolactylthiamin diphosphate derivative, a covalent adduct of the inhibitor and the coenzyme, mimicking the behavior of substrate and forming a stable analogue of the C2alpha-lactylthiamin diphosphate. Formation of the intermediate analogue in each case is confirmed by the appearance of a positive circular dichroism band in the 305-306 nm range, attributed to the 1',4'-iminopyrimidine tautomeric form of the coenzyme. It is further shown that the alphaHis63 residue of the human E1 has a role in the formation of C2alpha-lactylthiamin diphosphate since the alphaHis63Ala variant is only modestly inhibited by either inhibitor, nor did either compound generate the circular dichroism bands assigned to different tautomeric forms of the 4'-aminopyrimidine ring of the coenzyme seen with the wild-type enzyme. Interestingly, opposite enantiomers of the carboligase side product acetoin are produced by the human and bacterial enzymes.