Hypertension could cause significant worldwide health problems that affect 15-20% of all adults; according to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, about 29% of the adult population in the United States are hypertensive. Recent research has shown that peptides derived from the hydrolysis of food proteins can decrease blood pressure. This study was carried out to evaluate the hypotensive and antihypertensive potential of Mucuna pruriens protein hydrolysates in in vitro and in vivo models. M. pruriens protein concentrate was prepared by wet fractionation and enzymatically hydrolyzed using Alcalase, Flavourzyme, and the sequential system Alcalase-Flavourzyme at different times (5-120 min). The biological potential was measured in vitro based on the IC value as well as in vivo effect, measuring the systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure in normotensive and antihypertensive Wistar-Kyoto rats by the tail-cuff method. Hydrolysis of M. pruriens protein concentrates with commercial enzymes generated extensive hydrolysates with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE-I) inhibitory activity (IC: 0.589-0.993 mg/mL) and hypotensive (SBP: 0.6-47.43%, DBP: 1.94-43.47%) and antihypertensive (SBP: 8.84-27.29% DBP: 16.1-29.37%) effect. These results indicate that Mucuna pruriens protein hydrolysate (MPPH) could be used as a functional ingredient to prevent blood pressure increase.

Differentiation induction therapy is an attractive approach in leukemia treatment due to the fact that in blast crisis stage, leukemic cells lose their differentiation capacity. Therefore, it has been proposed as a therapeutic strategy to induce terminal differentiation of leukemic blast cells into a specific lineage, leading to prevention of high proliferation rates. The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the potential of cell differentiation and death induced by bovine dialyzable leukocyte extract (bDLE) in the K562 cell line. For this purpose K562 and MOLT-3 human leukemic cell lines and primary human monocytes and murine peritoneal macrophages were exposed to bDLE, phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) and dimethyl sulfoxide for 96 h, and the viability, proliferation and cell cycle were evaluated. To determine the lineage that led to cell differentiation, Romanowsky staining was performed to observe the morphological changes following the treatments, and the expression of the surface markers cluster of differentiation (CD)14+, CD68+, CD163+ and CD42a+, as well as the phagocytic activity, and the production of nitric oxide (NO) (assessed by colorimetric assay), cytokines [interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8 and tumor necrosis factor-α] and chemokines [chemokine (C-C motif) ligand (CCL)2, CCL5 and chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 8] in cell supernatants was assessed by flow cytometry. The results of the present study reveal that high doses of bDLE increase the cell death in K562 and MOLT-3 lines, without affecting the viability of human monocytes and murine peritoneal macrophages. Furthermore, low doses of bDLE induce differentiation in K562 cells towards a monocyte/macrophage lineage with an M2 phenotype, and induced moderately upregulated expression of CD42+, a megakaryocytic marker. Cell cycle arrest in the S and G2/M phases was observed in bDLE-treated K562 cells, which demonstrated similar phagocytic activity, NO levels and cytokine and chemokine production to that of PMA-treated cells. The present study demonstrates that bDLE exhibits an antileukemia effect, suggesting that it may be an effective candidate for leukemia treatment.

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