There are numerous proteases of pathogenic organisms that are currently targeted for therapeutic intervention along with many that are seen as potential drug targets. This review discusses the chemical and biological makeup of some key druggable proteases expressed by the five major classes of disease causing agents, namely bacteria, viruses, fungi, eukaryotes, and prions. While a few of these enzymes including HIV protease and HCV NS3-4A protease have been targeted to a clinically useful level, a number are yet to yield any clinical outcomes in terms of antimicrobial therapy. A significant aspect of this review discusses the chemical and pharmacological characteristics of inhibitors of the various proteases discussed. A total of 25 inhibitors have been considered potent and safe enough to be trialed in humans and are at different levels of clinical application. We assess the mechanism of action and clinical performance of the protease inhibitors against infectious agents with their developmental strategies and look to the next frontiers in the use of protease inhibitors as anti-infective agents.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 May 2026.
All research outputs
#7,083,963
of 32,770,949 outputs
Outputs from Medicinal Research Reviews
#314
of 997 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#108,681
of 473,287 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Medicinal Research Reviews
#2
of 5 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,770,949 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 997 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 56% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 473,287 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 5 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 3 of them.
