Abstract

Caseins are the principal milk proteins and serve as an important source of bioactive peptides with diverse beneficial effects for human health, such as antihypertensive, immunomodulating, anti-inflammatory, and antithrombotic. The objective of this study was to optimize, using the design of the experiment, the production of bioactive peptides from alpha-casein applying microwave -assisted enzyme digestion (MAED). The optimal MAED conditions (time, temperature, and enzyme/protein ratio) were established for pepsin (digestion time 4 min, temperature 41 degrees C, and E:P ratio 1:40) and trypsin (digestion time 10 min, temperature 37 degrees C and E:P ratio 1:200.) enzymes. Digestion yields and the intensity of different bioactivities, i.e., antimicrobial, antioxidant, and acetylcholinesterase and alpha glucosidase inhibitory activities, evaluated by the HPTLC-bioassay technique were used as response variables. Trypsin-formed alpha-casein peptides showed antimicrobial, antioxidant, and acetylcholinesterase inhibition activities, while pepsin -formed showed antimicrobial, antioxidant, and alpha-glucosidase inhibition activities. These results demonstrate that MAED is a fast and effective technique for bioactive peptide production from casein proteins.