Fish Nutrition & Feed Technology

14.2.Characteristics of enzymes and other digestive secretions

Unit 14 - Digestive enzyme , feed digestibility and factors affecting digestibility

14.2.Digestive fluids and enzymes

Digestive fluids and enzymes are part of the gastric secretions, pancreatic secretions, bile and intestinal secretions. Acid gastric fluid production probably occurs in most fish except in those without a stomach when neither HCl nor pepsin is formed in the gut. The following table gives principle sites of production of enzymes and their functions.

The digestive enzymes are termed as hydrolases (water soluble proteins) which are capable of catalyzing hydrolytic reactions. Based on the physiological functions they are divided in to proteases, lipases/esterases and carbohydrases that breakdown proteins, lipids/ fats and carbohydrates respectively.