Erepsin is a mixture of enzymes contained in a protein fraction found in the intestinal juices that digest peptones into amino acids.
It is produced and secreted by the intestinal glands in the ileum and the pancreas, but it is also found widely in other cells.
Erepsin was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century by German physiologist Otto Cohnheim (1873-1953) who found a substance that breaks down peptones into amino acid in the intestines.
[1][2] He termed this hypothetical protease in his protein extract "erepsin" in 1901, derived from a Greek word meaning "I break down" (έρείπω).
[5] It is often grouped under exopeptidases, proteases that work only on the outermost peptide bonds of a polypeptide chain.