Proteases and their Inhibitors: From Basic to High Throughput Screening

Proteases constitute one of the most important groups of industrial enzymes with a worldwide value expected to reach 2.7 billion US dollars by 2019. Proteases represent a group of enzymes that hydrolyze the peptide bonds of proteins, releasing polypeptides or free amino acids. These enzymes are used in cleaning products, production of leathers, textiles, food and dairy products, in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries and for water treatment. Another area of interest regarding proteases is the development of drugs that act as protease inhibitors. This review will briefly describe the general methods used in the detection of proteases and the few studies in the development of high throughput screening methods of proteases and protease inhibitors.