Nepenthesin
aspartic protease found in some plants
Nepenthesin (also spelled nepenthacin or nepenthasin) is an aspartic protease of plant origin that has so far been identified in the pitcher secretions of Nepenthes and in the leaves of Drosera peltata. It is similar to pepsin, but differs in that it also cleaves on either side of Asp residues and at Lys┼Arg. While more pH and temperature stable than porcine pepsin A, it is considerably less stable in urea or guanidine hydrochloride. It is the only known protein with such a stability profile.
The name nepenthesin was coined in 1968 by Shigeru Nakayama and Shizuko Amagase. Alternative names for this enzyme include Nepenthes acid proteinase and Nepenthes aspartic proteinase. Two isozymes have been identified in Nepenthes: nepenthesin I and nepenthesin II. The production of large quantities of nepenthesin-1 through heterologous expression in Escherichia coli was described in 2014.
The names cephalotusin, dionaeasin and droserasin have been proposed for similar aspartic endopeptidases originating from the carnivorous plant genera Cephalotus, Dionaea and Drosera, respectively.
Discovery
In the late 19th century, Sydney Howard Vines showed that the pitcher fluid from Nepenthes could digest protein in acidic conditions. He suggested the plants were making a digestive enzyme, for which he proposed the name "nepenthin".
“Nepenthesin” enters the record as aspartic protease found in some plants. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nepenthesin, aspartic and protease can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6994882. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1968 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nepenthesin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.