The Protease inhibitor (biology) reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Protease inhibitor (biology)

For the drugs used in AIDS, please refer to protease inhibitor (pharmacology)

In biology and biochemistry, protease inhibitors are molecules (usually enzymes) that inhibit the function of peptidases (old name: protease, hence the term protease inhibitor).

In medicine, protease inhibitor is often used interchangably with alpha 1-antitrypsin (A1AT, which is abbreviated P_i for this reason)[1]. A1AT is indeed the protease inhibitor that most often causes disease, namely in alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.

Classes of protease inhibitors are:

• Cysteine protease inhibitors
• Serine protease inhibitors (serpins)
  • Trypsin inhibitors
• Threonine protease inhibitors

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