Bioactive Peptides in Milk and Dairy Products: A Review

Abstract

Functionally and physiologically active peptides are produced from several food proteins during gastrointestinal digestion and fermentation of food materials with lactic acid bacteria. Once bioactive peptides (BPs) are liberated, they exhibit a wide variety of physiological functions in the human body such as gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, immune, endocrine, and nervous systems. These functionalities of the peptides in human health and physiology include antihypertensive, antimicrobial, antioxidative, antithrombotic, opioid, anti-appetizing, immunomodulatory and mineral-binding activities. Most of the bioactivities of milk proteins are latent, being absent or incomplete in the original native protein, but full activities are manifested upon proteolytic digestion to release and activate encrypted bioactive peptides from the original protein. Bioactive peptides have been identified within the amino acid sequences of native milk proteins. Due to their physiological and physico-chemical versatility, milk peptides are regarded as greatly important components for health promoting foods or pharmaceutical applications. Milk and colostrum of bovine and other dairy species are considered as the most important source of natural bioactive components. Over the past a few decades, major advances and developments have been achieved on the science, technology and commercial applications of bioactive components which are present naturally in the milk. Although the majority of published works are associated with the search of bioactive peptides in bovine milk samples, some of them are involved in the investigation of ovine or caprine milk. The advent of functional foods has been facilitated by increasing scientific knowledge about the metabolic and genomic effects of diet and specific dietary components on human health.

Unusual Listeria monocytogenes peritonitis in peritoneal dialysis patient with liver cirrhosis: a case report and review of literature

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Milk and milk‐derived peptides combat against hypertension and vascular dysfunction: a review

“…At present, bioactive peptides are known to be formed from both the two main proteins in milk: caseins (alpha‐, beta‐ and kappa‐casein) and whey proteins, for example, alpha‐lactalbumin and beta‐lactoglobulin. This review will focus only on antihypertensive peptides although dairy products have been shown to contain peptides which potentially could influence many other physiological processes in addition to the cardiovascular system (see Park & Nam, ; Korhonen & Pihlanto‐Leppälä, ; Mohanty et al ., ).…”

Bioactive Peptides in Milk: From Encrypted Sequences to Nutraceutical Aspects

“…It describes their physiological functions, general characteristics, and potentialities for improving health, as well as their nutraceutical and/or pharmaceutical applications. Besides their biochemical and physiological efficacy and versatility, milk-derived BPs are considered as ingredients of functional foods, as pointed out in a review by Park and Nam [64]. Milk BPs in dairy and non-dairy food formulations have been exploited, as shown by several authors [65][66][67].…”