Protease inhibitor (biology)
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- For the drugs used in AIDS, please refer to protease inhibitor (pharmacology)
In biology and biochemistry, protease inhibitors are molecules that inhibit the function of peptidases (old name: protease, hence the term protease inhibitor). Many naturally-occurring protease inhibitors are proteins.
In medicine, protease inhibitor is often used interchangeably with alpha 1-antitrypsin (A1AT, which is abbreviated Pi for this reason)[1] (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/dispomim.cgi?id=107400). A1AT is indeed the protease inhibitor most often involved in disease, namely in alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.
Classes of protease inhibitors are:
- Cysteine protease inhibitors
- Serine protease inhibitors (serpins)
- Trypsin inhibitors
- Threonine protease inhibitors