Mixture of Digestive Enzymes - Erepsin

Erepsin is a mixture of enzymes-peptidases contained in the mucous membrane of the small intestine and intestinal juice. It was previously believed that erepsin was a single enzyme that non-specifically catalyzes the hydrolysis of peptones and albumoses with the formation of free amino acids, thereby completing the digestion of food proteins in the gastrointestinal tract (after the action of pepsin from gastric juice, trypsin and chymotrypsin from pancreatic juice, see in the electronic library).

It has been established that in reality erepsin is not an individual enzyme, but a mixture of specific peptidase enzymes or ereptases (dipeptidases, aminopeptidases and prolidases, activated by manganese, zinc, cobalt, magnesium), which transform the low-molecular-weight intermediate products of protein breakdown into the final products of decomposition in the gastrointestinal tract.

Studying the enzymes of the intestinal mucosa and leukocytes, Willstätter revealed that leukocytes migrating into the intestinal canal play a significant role as a source of intestinal erepsin. Although this hypothesis still needs verification. Individual components of erepsin are widely distributed in the animal organism. They are contained in quantitative ratios in pancreatic juice, as well as in almost all organs and tissues.