Recent Advances in Metal Nanomaterials as Enzyme Inhibitors and Their Biomedical Applications

Enzyme inhibitors (EIs) are widely used in various biomedical and clinical areas as well as in the treatment of several diseases, including diabetes. Currently, enzyme inhibitors are mainly obtained from plants and micro- organisms and through chemical synthesis. However, EIs obtained from these sources have several drawbacks such as providing a large number of "false-positive" results, which makes the identification of active components very difficult. Therefore, the development of new specific inhibitors with a broad spectrum of activity remains a hot topic for future research. Nanomedicine has emerged as a promising branch that provides major leads in the treatment of major disorders, drug delivery, and disease diagnosis. Nanoinhibitors are synthetic or organic nanoparticles that are used as specific inhibitors to alter the catalytic activity of biomedically important enzymes. This review summarizes the properties and classification of nanomaterials, the advantages and drawbacks of physicochemical methods of synthesis of NPs and the biological synthesis of nanoparticles. It also provides a detailed account of nanomaterials that worked as protease or enzyme inhibitors with assay methods, protease/enzyme inhibition and biomedical applications.