Identification of the major ACE-Inhibitory peptides produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of a protein concentrate from cuttlefish wastewater

Abstract

The aim of this work was the purification and identification of the major angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of a protein concentrate recovered from a cuttlefish industrial manufacturing effluent. This process consisted on the ultrafiltration of cuttlefish softening wastewater, with a 10 kDa cut-off membrane, followed by the hydrolysis with alcalase of the retained fraction. Alcalase produced ACE inhibitors reaching the highest activity (IC50 = 76.8 ± 15.2 μg mL-1) after 8 h of proteolysis. Sequential ultrafiltration of the 8 h hydrolysate with molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) membranes of 10 and 1 kDa resulted in the increased activity of each permeate, with a final IC50 value of 58.4 ± 4.6 μg mL-1. Permeate containing peptides lower than 1 kDa was separated by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Four fractions (A-D) with potent ACE inhibitory activity were isolated and their main peptides identified using high performance liquid chromatography coupled to an electrospray ion trap Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance-mass spectrometer (HPLC-ESI-IT-FTICR) followed by comparison with databases and de novo sequencing. The amino acid sequences of the identified peptides contained at least one hydrophobic and/or a proline together with positively charged residues in at least one of the three C-terminal positions. The IC50 values of the fractions ranged from 1.92 to 8.83 μg mL-1, however this study fails to identify which of these peptides are ultimately responsible for the potent antihypertensive activity of these fractions. © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI.