Inhibitors are critical tools for researchers who work on cell signaling. In the body, biochemical and environmental signals control intracellular processes as well as interactions between cells, tissues, and organs. Cellular enzymes often transmit, or respond to, those signals. Many diseases result from the dysfunction of one particular enzyme among the thousands present in a typical cell. Inhibitors are used in living cells and in vitro to identify and study the enzyme(s) that may be responsible for disease, and to enable researchers to pinpoint a specific enzyme as a possible target for drug therapy. In fact, many drug candidates are enzyme inhibitors.
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