Traditionally, food has not only been the source of human nutrition but also
an excellent factor for deriving nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. The biopolymers
such as protein and polysaccharides derived from food sources have special
significance as they are important part of human diet. Several important bioactive
peptides have been discovered from food protein hydrolysates and fermented products
that have shown to possess a spectrum of beneficial pharmacological activities. This
chapter deals with food protein derived bioactive peptides and their structural
characterization employing NMR spectroscopy. It is well known from the vast
literature on bioactive peptides that NMR spectroscopy is an indispensable tool to fully
characterize the structures of bioactive peptides in their inherent physiological state.
However, limited literature exists on detailed structural characterization of food derived
bioactive peptides. It is therefore very important to review the literature on structural
aspects of food peptides and provide an appraisal of NMR techniques suitable for
comprehensive structural characterization of this class of bioactive peptides.
This chapter is aimed to introduce NMR spectroscopy and its applications to a wide
range of readers in the field of food chemistry in general and to the food peptide
researchers in particular. The main objective is to review the literature on food derived
bioactive peptides and highlight the potential of NMR spectroscopy to understand
structure-activity relationship of bioactive peptides in order to boost further
developments in this important field. With a view to make this chapter readable to beginners in the field, basic principles of NMR spectroscopy will also be included.
Application of solution NMR spectroscopy to bioactive peptides will then be described.
Salient features including the size and structural differences of food bioactive peptides
when compared to the other classes of bioactive peptides will then be discussed in
order to make an informed assessment of choice of NMR techniques suitable for their
structural characterization.
Keywords: ACE inhibitory peptides, Antimicrobial peptides, Antioxidative
peptides, Bioactive peptides, Chemical shift index, Food proteins, Immunomodulatory
peptides, Multidimensional NMR Spectroscopy, Nutraceutical value,
Secondary structure, Structure activity relationship.
