Peptides, antihypertensive antimicrobial

Bioactive peptides have been defined as specific protein fragments that have a positive impact on body functions or conditions and may influence health. Upon oral administration, bioactive peptides, may affect the major body systems—namely, the cardiovascular, digestive, immune, and nervous systems. The beneficial health effects may be classified as antimicrobial, antioxidative, antithrombotic, antihypertensive, antimicrobial, and immunomodulatory [87,88]. 

Many food proteins were found to possess biological activities beyond basic nutritional values. The peptides generated from certain food proteins may possess strong biological activities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antimicrobial, immunomodulatory, and opioid properties (Bennett et al., 2005 Ferreira et al., 2007 FitzGerald et al., 2004 Gauthier et al., 2006 Gobbetti et al., 2004 Yamamoto et al., 2003). 

Bioactive peptides as products of hydrolysis of diverse marine invertebrate (shellfish, crustacean, rotifer, etc.) proteins are the focus of current research. After much research on these muscles and byproducts, some biologically active peptides were identified and applied to useful compounds for human utilization. This chapter reviews bioactive peptides from marine invertebrates in regarding to their bioactivities. Additionally, specific characteristics of antihypertensive, anti-Alzheimer, antioxidant, antimicrobial peptide enzymatic production, methods to evaluate bioactivity capacity, bioavailability, and safety concerns of peptides are reviewed. 

Recently, marine fish-derived bioactive peptides have been shown to possess many physiological functions including antihypertensive, antioxidant, antimicrobial, antiproliferative, antitumor, anticoagulant, and immunomodulatory activities. Among these, antihypertensive peptides act as ACE inhibitors are of particular interest for prevention and treatment of hypertension (Kobayashi et ah, 2008). 

The presence of peptides can also have an effect on wine quality. In general, these compounds are known to have several biological (antioxidant, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, etc.) and chemical-physical (surfactant) properties and also to affect the taste of some foods. However, peptides have received only a little attention, mainly because of the difficulties in their isolation from wines (Moreno-Arribas et al., 2002). 

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