Today, there is a growing interest in the valorization of agricultural and
agroindustrial waste/byproducts, including through obtaining bioactive compounds.
Besides the use of plant proteins in animal nutrition, obtaining protein hydrolyzates
could give an added value, improving digestibility and exerting functional properties
by the generation of bioactive peptides. Bioactive peptides encrypted in plant proteins
are latent until released and activated by proteolysis. Generally, to obtain bioactive
peptides, enzymatic hydrolysis by peptidases is the most common way, with or without
previous solubilization and purification steps of the intact protein. This hydrolysis step
can be combined with physical and chemical treatments not only to improve the
recovery but also to enhance the bioactivity. Therefore, our chapter presents an
overview of different ways of production to obtain bioactive peptides from different
underutilized plant sources, including from food, brewing and bioethanol industries. In
order to characterize bioactive peptides, the application of conventional methods and
more sophisticated methods based on mass spectrometry is also described. Moreover,
recent literature on the bioactive properties of those plant peptides and current
challenges associated with safety issues are discussed.
Keywords: ACE-inhibitor, Antioxidant, Antihypertensive, Antidiabetic,
Byproduct, Bioactive peptide, Carbohydrolase, Hydrolysis, Mass spectrometry, Microwave assisted extraction, Peptidomics, Peptidase, Protein, Sustainability,
Valorization.
