A review of the most important classes of serine protease inhibitors in insects and leeches

The constant increase of life expectancy is associated with major aging of developed populations. This indicates that the new century will have one of most epidemic progressions of cardiovascular, cancer and inflammatory diseases. The high challenge for medical research is to compress such morbidity. Invertebrates have demonstrated to be truly useful models in drug discovery for such aging diseases. The last decade, drug discovery in leeches has opened the gate for new molecules to treat emphysema, coagulation, inflammation, dermatitis and cancer. Also other invertebrates, such as insects, harvest potential interesting molecules, such as serine protease inhibitors that can be exploited by the medical industry. In this review we discuss the most important classes of serine protease inhibitors in insects and leeches. © 2005 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.status: publishe