Pepsin: An Excellent Proteolytic Enzyme for the Production of Bioactive Peptides

The production of bioactive peptides (BPs) usually involves the enzymatic hydrolysis stage during which one or more proteases are used to break down the parental protein into shorter fragments. In this review, efforts were made to focus on using pepsin as a unique protease capable of generating BPs. We started with the description of BPs and proteases prior to the unraveling of pepsin's properties and immobilization for the production of BPs. The peptic hydrolysis of food-derived proteins to generate BPs with biological functions, e.g. antioxidative, ACE-inhibitory, metal-binding, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial activities from vegetable, fish, seafood, whey, casein, blood plasma, and egg proteins, among other unconventional protein sources were discussed. The review concluded with BPs used in developing food products for their techno-functional properties such as emulsifying, water, and fat-holding capacities.