Bioactive peptides as functional food ingredients

Abstract

Bioactive Peptides as Functional Food Ingredients, Barberis et al. describe the useful roles of bioactive peptides and tools to improve their nutraceutical impact by reducing limitations, such as low bioavailability due to the gastrointestinal digestion, poor transportability through the membranes, and rapid plasma clearance. Bioactive peptides are protein specific portions of 2 to 20 amino acid residues with desirable biological activities, based on their composition and sequence. Databases report about 3000 peptide sequences with potential activities (antioxidant, anti-hypertensive, antithrombotic, anti-adipogenic, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory).The bioactive peptides are inactive within parent protein, but can be released during gastrointestinal digestion and the food processing. It is assumed that peptides have high specificity in target tissues; none or little toxicity, neither accumulation in the organism, and easy degradability in the environment. However, their usefulness as nutraceuticals is limited by the low bioavailability due to the gastrointestinal digestion, poor transportability through the membranes and rapid plasma clearance. This Chapter reviews the different technologies for the production of bioactive peptides: extraction from natural sources; production by recombinant DNA technology, production in cell-free expression systems, production in transgenic animals and plants, fermentation, chemical and enzymatic synthesis. Although the size of the molecule will determine the technology most suitable for its production, this Chapter emphasizes in the synthesis, chemical and enzymatic, of bioactive peptides.Finally, chemical and enzymatic strategies are discussed to enhance absorption; effectiveness and bioavailability; study molecular mechanisms of activity and assess the safety of these functional ingredients.