Q. How does the pancreatic juice participate in the digestion of proteins? What are the involved enzymes?
The pancreas secretes trypsinogen that undergoing action of the enzyme enterokinase secreted by the duodenum is transformed into trypsin. Trypsin in its turn catalyzes the activation of pancreatic chymotrypsinogen into chymotrypsin, chymotrypsin and trypsin are proteases that break proteins into smaller peptides. The smaller peptides are then broken into amino acids by the enzyme carboxipeptidase also secreted by the pancreas in a zymogen form and activated by trypsin helped by the enzyme aminopeptidase made in the intestinal mucous membrane.