Food-Derived Bioactive Peptides: Preparation, Identification, and Structure-Activity Relationship

Bioactive peptides are low molecular weight protein fragments, usually with 2–20 amino acid residues. Bioactive peptides can be derived from many food sources (such as fruits, vegetables, domestic animals, poultry, milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, and algae) that exhibit beneficial biological activities like preventing diseases or modulating the physiological systems. Recently, bioactive peptides are attracting the common attention of the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries, as they provide a lot of research potential due to the wide range of sources, diverse functions, good biocompatibility, and diverse intake methods. These biological activities are often related to preparation methods, molecular weight, chemical structure, chemical properties, the ways these compounds enter the human body, their interaction with some enzymes in the body, and the molecular pathways of functional components. Therefore, we are interested in the preparation, bioactivity evaluation, and exploring the structural characteristics and action forms of food-derived bioactive peptides.

This research topic welcomes papers dealing with the preparation, separation, and identification of food-derived bioactive compounds and their biochemical and physiological actions. Approaches to reveal the structure-activity relationships and the molecular action mechanisms of food-derived bioactive peptides are especially popular. Full experimental details must be provided so that the results can be reproduced. The research topic will NOT consider the pure preparation process of a crude extract with no clear molecule mass and formula, papers focusing on pharmaceutical or non-food herbal remedies, traditional or folk medicines data, or pure clinical experiments or measuring methods.

We welcome original research, short communications, graphical reviews, and full-length review related to sub-topics of bioactive peptides including:

• Preparation and isolation of bioactive peptides (with the inhibiting capacity of oxidative damage, hyperuricemia, hypertension, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, etc.) from food;

• Identification and characterization;

• Bioactive evaluation in vivo or in vitro;

• Structure-activity relationship;

• Molecular action mechanisms;

• Analytical chemistry and biotechnology.