noun
- A mixture of enzymes found in the small intestine that breaks down peptides and other small molecules during digestion.
Usage: biochemistry; dated term; modern usage prefers specific enzyme names
Examples
- Erepsin was historically identified as a key enzyme complex in intestinal digestion.
- The discovery of erepsin helped early biochemists understand how proteins are broken down in the gut.
- Modern research has shown that erepsin is actually a collection of several distinct peptidases rather than a single enzyme.