The substrate-like 'canonical' inhibition by the 'small' serine proteinase inhibitors and the productlike inhibition by the carboxypeptidase inhibitor have provided the only atomic models of protein inhibitor -proteinase interactions for about 15 years. The recently published structures of cystatin/ stefin -papain complexes and of hirudin -thrombin complexes reveal novel non-substrate-like interactions, In addition, the structure of pro-carboxypeptidase showes a mode of inactivation which bears resemblance to proteinase/protein inhibitor systems. Considerable progress in understanding the transition between native and cleaved states of the serpins has also been made by several recent structural studies.Proteinase inhibitors are important tools of nature for regulating the proteolytic activity of their target proteinases, for blocking these in emergency cases, or for signaling receptor interactions or clearance. Endogenous inhibitors appear to be always proteins; small non-proteinaceous inhibitors which impair the proteolytic activity of host proteinases are produced in microorganisms.The number of proteinaceous proteinase inhibitors isolated and identified so far is extremely large. In a now classical review paper, Laskowski and Kato [2] introduced for the first time a rational nomenclature by grouping these diverse inhibitors into distinct protein families. In the meantime, this list of families has considerably expanded with the advent of many new inhibitor species, and is still growing.The majority of protein inhibitors known and characterized so far are directed towards serine proteinases. Within the last few years, a large number of protein inhibitors of cysteine proteinases have also been discovered and characterized [3,4]. In contrast, only a few protein inhibitors directed towards metallo-proteinases (TIMP and PCI, see [5,61) or aspartyl proteinases (see [7][8][9]) are known to date. The azmacroglobulin family presents an exception, as these proteins can inhibit all of these proteinases according to a 'molecular trap' mechanism by virtue of a promiscuous 'bait region' (see [IOI).Until recently, X-ray crystal structures of only a few serine proteinase inhibitors, one carboxypeptidase inhibitor, and some of their complexes with cognate proteinases were available. The X-ray crystal structures of protein inhibitors published up to 1985 have been reviewed by Read and James A new aspect is provided by inhibitor structures elucidated by two-dimensional NMR methods (see [22, 231 for reviews). These data are often complementary to X-ray data, but are restricted to isolated inhibitors of relatively small molecular mass; until now, no NMR structure of a protein inhibitor has been reported for whch there is no X-ray structure available.In this review, we shall attempt to illuminate the characteristic structural properties conferring inhibitory activity to proteins. Nature has used diverse approaches to achieve proteinase inhibition. This is particularly well illustrated by some more recently published structures. In...