Plant Protease Inhibitors in Therapeutics-Focus on Cancer Therapy.

ABSTRACT: Plants are known to have many secondary metabolites and phytochemical compounds which are highly explored at biochemical and molecular genetics level and exploited enormously in the human health care sector. However, there are other less explored small molecular weight proteins, which inhibit proteases/proteinases. Plants are good sources of protease inhibitors (PIs) which protect them against diseases, insects, pests, and herbivores. In the past, proteinaceous PIs were considered primarily as protein-degrading enzymes. Nevertheless, this view has significantly changed and PIs are now treated as very important signaling molecules in many biological activities such as inflammation, apoptosis, blood clotting and hormone processing. In recent years, PIs have been examined extensively as thera

SUBMITTER: Srikanth S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5143346 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature