12 - Food bioactive proteins and peptides: antimicrobial, immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects

Abstract

In addition to supplying essential nutrients, it is now well accepted that some food proteins can confer additional health benefits beyond nutrition. Some food proteins act directly in their intact form to elicit physiological effects, but generally peptides resulting from digestion, hydrolysis or fermentation of the protein are considered of the most interest, and these frequently display greater bioactivity than the parent protein. In this chapter we focus on the potential for generation and absorption of food bioactive peptides in the gut and their site of action. The range of reported physiological effects of bioactive proteins and peptides is diverse and we review bioactive proteins and peptides with antimicrobial, immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects, their potential mechanisms of action and applications to human health.