Does pepsin break protein into peptides or polypeptides?

[Jessica]

I need to know this for a bio test and am not sure which it is. Thanks!

[niko]

Pepsin is an enzyme whose zymogen (pepsinogen) is released by the chief cells in the stomach and that degrades food proteins into peptides.

[Kunal Pandya]

Pepsin is relatively non-specific although it does have a preference for cleaving after hydrophobic amino acids in protein,peptide, polypeptide . Pepsin breack peptide bond between hydrophobic peptide like phenylalanine, tryptophan, Tyrosine.

Pepsin will also preferentially cleave at the carboxyl side of phenylalanine and leucine and to a lesser extent at the carboxyl side of glutamic acid residues.Amidation of the C-terminal carboxyl group prevents hydrolysis by pepsin.

or e.g. :- Pepsin Cleaves Phe1-Val, Gln4-His, Glu13-Ala, Ala14-Leu, Leu15-Tyr, Tyr16-Leu, Gly23-Phe, Phe24-Phe and Phe25-Tyr bonds in the B chain of insulin.


Regards