Signaling pathways are often inactivated by enzymes that reverse the activation state and/or induce the degradation of signaling components.  Scaffolds have been proposed to protect activated signaling molecules from inactivation and/or degradation.  Mathematical modeling has shown that kinases in a cascade without scaffolds have a higher probability of being dephosphorylated by phosphatases before they are even able to phosphorylate downstream targets. Furthermore, scaffolds have been shown to insulate kinases from substrate- and ATP-competitive inhibitors.