Research Progress on Evaluation Method of Functional Characteristics of Food-Derived Peptides, Molecular Structure-Activity Relationship and Absorption and Metabolism Mechanism(食源性肽的功能特性评价方法、分子构效关系及吸收代谢机制)
摘要
Peptides were compounds with intermediate molecular structures between amino acids and proteins, having numerous nutritional properties including easy absorption, low osmotic pressure, low immunogenicity, and high tissue permeability. They were also important chemical messengers for tissue and cells capable of regulating cellular metabolism. Food-derived peptides were an important nutritional bases prepared from food protein using either a restriction enzymatic hydrolysis or biological fermentation, possessing both good nutritional value and exerting various physiological modulatory activities. However, the transport and absorption of food-derived functional peptides, as well as the spatial and temporal dynamic distribution in intracellular subcellular organelles and its functional effect on the regulation of nutrient metabolism, have yet to be studied. Moreover, the mode of action of the synergy between different structural and functional peptide molecules (such as transmembrane peptides, signal peptides, transport peptides, etc.) remained unclear, thereby restricting the basic research and rapid industrial development of food-derived peptides. Herein, the multi-dimensional peptide function evaluation methods in chemical, in vitro biological, lower/higher model animals, and clinical dimensions as well as the molecular structure-activity relationships of food-derived peptides were systematically introduced. The molecular conformational rules of food-derived peptides were described from the “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, and a “structure-effect” characterization theory based on molecular hybridization orbitals had been developed. Furthermore, the structure-activity relationship of peptide molecules with different molecular and structural features (such as primary amino acid sequence, spatial configuration, arrangement of the peptide bonds in the main chain, diversity of side chain functional groups, and α-carbon chirality, among others, etc.) in the process o