Microalgae as source of bioactive peptides

Spirulina is considered by the World Health Organization “one of the greatest superfood on the globe”. While many functional aspects have been investigated, the knowledge on its encrypted bioactive peptides is still scares. A high-throughput peptidomic strategy was applied to get insight into peptide expression and to screen their DPP-IV inhibitory activity. Spirulina proteins reveal different susceptibility to hydrolysis by pepsin (SP) and trypsin (ST). In the SP group 53 peptides were identified by LC-MS/MS, while 74 were characterized in the ST group. The maximum peptide MW distribution ranged between 1 and 1.5 kDa, for both groups, representing the 38% (SP) and 37% (ST) of total identified peptides, respectively. The inhibitory activity of SP and ST (5 mg/mL) against recombinant DPP-IV, was 41.1% and 37.92%, respectively, vs control. This results underline the great potential of microalgae hydrolysates in diabetes prevention providing useful information for functional foods development from spirulina.