Soy bean trypsin inhibitor (SBTI) belongs to the family of serpins – serine protease inhibitors widely distributed in the nature. Serpins participate in the regulation of proteolytic reactions underling very important physiological and pathological processes such as digestion, blood clotting, immunity, apoptosis, inflammation, carcinogenesis and so on. Despite the apparent importance of the correction of imbalances of the proteolysis in pathology, in fact only the pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (aprotinin) is used more or less widely as a protease inhibitor drug (Trasisol, Contrical, Gordox etc) in the treatment of some diseases. Being the animal protein aprotinin possesses substantial disadvantages and attempts to develop new drug on the base of plant or recombinant proteins or peptidomimetics are undertaken. SBTI is one of the candidates for such a role.
In book: SOYBEAN - BIO-ACTIVE COMPOUNDS, Chapter: 22, Publisher: InTech, Editors: Hany A. El-Shemy. P. 495-512