title: Conservation of digestive enzymes.
abstract: The traditional understanding is that an entirely new complement of digestive enzymes is secreted by the pancreas into the small intestines with each meal. This is thought to be necessary because, like food itself, these enzymes are degraded during digestion. In this review we discuss experiments that bring this point of view into question. They suggest that digestive enzymes can be absorbed into blood, reaccumulated by the pancreas, and reutilized, instead of being reduced to their constituent amino acids in the intestines. This is called an enteropancreatic circulation of digestive enzymes.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Physiology, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143-0444, USA. rothman@itsa.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rothman
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liebow
authors.forename: Lois
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Isenman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport; D004063:Digestion / Q000502:physiology*; D004798:Enzymes / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000378:metabolism; D010179:Pancreas / Q000098:blood supply / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004798:Enzymes