Modification of Vegetable Proteins to Release Bioactive Peptides Able to Treat Metabolic Syndrome—In Silico Assessment

Abstract

Metabolic syndrome comprises a cluster of diseases like hypertension, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance, among others. Its treatment is based on lifestyle modification; however, this treatment often fails to improve metabolic syndrome indicators over the long term. In this work, sequences of some representative vegetable proteins were explored to find bioactive peptides with activity toward metabolic disorders of metabolic syndrome. Five proteins, i.e., legumin (chickpea), glutelin type A-2 (chickpea), glutelin type B-2 (rice), prolamin PPROL 17 (maize), and glutelin (rice) revealed a high potential to be effective against metabolic syndrome. We designed and evaluated in silico modifications to their amino acid sequence to release bioactive peptides after simulating gastrointestinal digestion (SGD). The approach presented here allows the design of proteins that could combat metabolic syndrome, for later production and study. In the future, these proteins can be used as functional foods.

Engineering Concanavalin B to Release Bioactive Peptides against Metabolic Syndrome

“…According to our previous peptide selection [ 9 ], we searched among some representative vegetable proteins, for those with the major number of BPs in their sequence compared to total number of amino acids ( A value). Concanavalin B (1CNV) from Canavalia ensiformis contain 10 BPs in their sequence ( A = 0.033) of which seven are antihypertensive (three VY, two EY and two DG), one antioxidant (CG) and two lipid-lowering (DE) ( Supplementary Material Table S1 ) so, we chose Concanavalin B as the scaffold.…”

“…We have previously reported a strategy to design a protein with properties against metabolic syndrome [ 9 ]. The Figure 1 summarizes the workflow.…”

“… 1 The VY dipeptide has being reported to be antioxidant [ 21 ]; however, its main activity is as ACEI [ 22 ]. Peptides selected from our previous report are bold [ 9 ]. …”

“…We have previously reported that knowledge of bioactive peptides in combination with protein engineering can be used as a tool with the potential to treat, ameliorate, or prevent MS through the design of a functional compound that enriches a food [ 9 ]. These modified proteins can then be used for in vivo trials to test in vivo the biological activity in an organism.…”