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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 P_i for this reason)[1]. A1AT is indeed the protease inhibitor most often involved in disease, namely in alpha 1-antitrypsin deficiency.

Protease inhibitors may be classified either by the type of protase the inhibit, or by their mechanism of action.

Classes of proteases are:

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

Classes of inhibitor mechanisms of action are:

• Suicide inhibitor
• Transition state inhibitor
• Protein protease inhibitor (See serpins)
• Chelating agents

pl:Inhibitory proteaz