Current knowledge of intestinal absorption of bioactive peptides

Abstract

Peptides have been demonstrated as potentially beneficial compounds against several life-style related diseases such as hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and atherosclerosis, among others. However, limited research has been carried out on peptide absorption, resulting in a lack of understanding and control of this process. Therefore, this review discusses the recent insights gathered on in vitro and in vivo absorption of peptides across intestinal membranes, into blood circulation. Briefly, some di-/tripeptides permeate through intestinal membranes in their intact forms via peptide transporter systems, while others are vulnerable to protease degradation. Oligopeptides (>tetrapeptides) show a lower transport ability than di-/tripeptides, possibly due to the presence of paracellular tight junctions. The hydrophobicity of peptides (log P) does not seem to influence absorption, while peptide length and degradation of peptides (and peptide sequences) by intestinal proteases may be determinant factors of the absorption process.

Current understanding of transport and bioavailability of bioactive peptides derived from dairy proteins: a review

“…Moreover, theaflavins, major polyphenol pigments in black tea, could enhance barrier function by increasing TJ expression. All these reagents have been used to investigate the role of TJs in peptide transport across Caco‐2 monolayers (Vij et al ., ; Lin et al ., ; Shen & Matsui, ; Xu et al ., ).…”

“…The presence of TJs may explain why small peptides have a higher bioavailability than that of peptides with long chains (Shen & Matsui, ). TJ pores in human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma (Caco‐2) cell monolayers have a diameter of approximately 2.1 nm (Shimizu et al ., ; Linnankoski et al ., ), indicating that they may not transport long peptides with too large size.…”

Bioactive Phaseolus lunatus peptides release from maltodextrin/gum arabic microcapsules obtained by spray drying after simulated gastrointestinal digestion

“…() reported that antioxidant activity of P. lunatus hydrolysates was related with the high level of His, Tyr, Trp, and Arg in peptide sequence. These results demonstrate that the bioactive properties of P. lunatus peptides are strongly related with their size and sequence, which can be reduced by the action of gastrointestinal proteases (Shen & Matsui, ; Cian et al ., ). Physiological effects of bioactive peptides depend largely on their ability to remain intact after digestive process.…”

Current understanding of bioaccessibility and bioavailability of food‐derived bioactive peptides

“…Food-derived bioactive peptides with potential use as nutraceuticals and health supplement have increased interests of nutraceutical industries (S anchez & V azquez, 2017;Zieli nska et al, 2018). In spite of the significant progress in the isolation and purification of bioactive peptides from several natural sources, there are still several limitations in obtaining and purifying sufficient quantity of bioactive peptide fractions to perform the human trial at a large scale without losing activity (O'Keeffe et al, 2017;Shen & Matsui, 2017). With preclinical food-derived bioactive peptides, future directions should be taken on exploring opportunities to promote the use of these peptides as functional ingredients for developing products with specific health benefits.…”