Hepatoprotective effect of clam (Corbicula fluminea) protein hydrolysate on alcohol-induced liver injury in mice and partial identification of a hepatoprotective peptide from the hydrolysate

Abstract

In the current research, edible meat of freshwater clam Corbicula fluminea was subjected to enzymatic peptide extraction using animal protease. The clam protein hydrolysate (CPH) contained 45.78% essential amino acids and 44.97% hydrophobic amino acids and showed high alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) activation in vitro. Four fractions were divided from CPH by ultrafiltration and further investigated for their hepatoprotective effects on alcohol-induced injury in mice. The 2.5-5 kDa fraction (CPH-3) showed the best effect for preventing hepatic damage caused by alcohol, as revealed by reduced serum aspartate transaminase (AST) and alanine transaminase (ALT) activities and hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) level, the marked decrease in the hepatic triglyceride (TG) contents, and the enhanced hepatic ADH, aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), and glutathione (GSH) activities. Furthermore, histopathology of CPH-3-treated mice showed less hepatic tissue damage compared to alcohol-or other CPHstreated mice. Hence, CPH-3 was further purified by consecutive chromatographic techniques with gel filtration and reversephase high-performance liquid chromatography. One hepatoprotective peptide, KKLAGFLRYYS (1330.68 Da), was identified by LC-MS/MS, which exhibited strong ADH activation activity. Results suggested that CPH could be a potential nutraceutical for facilitating alcohol metabolism and preventing or ameliorating early liver injury induced by acute alcohol exposure and that the peptide KKLAGFLRYYS is one of the main bioactive components in CPH.

Preparation, Structural Identification, and Screening of Egg-Derived Peptides with Facilitating Alcohol Metabolism Activity

“…Alcohol metabolism generates large amounts of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and a large accumulation of ROS in the liver will cause oxidative stress, which is an important factor in alcoholic liver injury [ 21 ]. An antioxidant defense system exists in normal hepatocytes, including antioxidant enzymes (SOD, CAT, and GSH-Px, etc.)…”

“…Additionally, there is a health care product called Haiwangjinzun (HWJZ) on the market, which is mainly made of oyster soy peptides, vitamin c, L-cysteine, taurine, and other raw materials. It has a protective effect against chemical liver injury and has a significant prevention and treatment effect on alcoholism, reducing the degree of drunkenness and promoting alcohol metabolism [ 21 , 22 ]. It is one of the few products on the market with a health food batch number to promote alcohol metabolism.…”

Hepatoprotective Effect of Albumin Peptide Fractions from Corn Germ Meal against Alcohol-Induced Acute Liver Injury in Mice

“…Currently, interest in food-derived bioactive peptides is growing because of their biological activity and high nutritional and safety characteristics [ 23 ]. Many studies in recent years have discovered the protective effect of bioactive peptides against alcohol-induced injury, such as marine collagen peptides [ 27 ], Corbicula fluminea protein hydrolysates [ 28 ], glycopeptide from zein [ 29 ], soybean meal peptides [ 30 ], coix seed protein hydrolysates [ 31 ], and so on. Therefore, this experiment was conducted to study the effects of albumin peptide fractions from corn germ meal (MW < 1 kDa) (APF4) on acute liver injury induced by alcohol in mice.…”

Insights into sub-chronic toxicity effects of enzymatic hydrolysate of peony seed meal derived Maillard reaction products in SD rats

“…The general signs and mortality of each SD rat were recorded daily. The body weight and food intake of SD rats were recorded weekly (Gao et al, 2022). Blood samples were obtained according to the method of (Wei et al, 2019a), and histopathology was performed at the end of the experiment (Wu et al, 2020).…”