Production of Bioactive Peptides from Sea Cucumber and Its Potential Health Benefits: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Bioactive peptides from food have been widely studied due to their potential applications as functional foods and pharmaceuticals. Sea cucumber, a traditional tonic food, is characterized by high protein and low fat, thereby substrates are being studied to release sea cucumber peptides (SCPs). Although recent studies have shown that SCPs have various bioactive functions, there is no literature reviewing the development status of SCPs. In this review, we summarized the production of SCPs, including their purification and identification, then mainly focused on the comprehensive potential health benefits of SCP in vivo and in vitro, and finally discussed the challenge facing the development of SCPs. We found that SCPs have well-documented health benefits due to their antioxidation, anti-diabetes, ACE inhibitory, immunomodulatory, anti-cancer, anti-fatigue, anti-aging, neuroprotection, micromineral-chelating, etc. However, the structure−activity relationships of SCPs and the functional molecular mechanisms underlying their regulation in vivo need further investigation. Research on the safety of SCP and its potential regulation mechanism will contribute to transferring these findings into commercial applications. Hopefully, this review could promote the development and application of SCPs in further investigation and commercialization.

Sea Cucumber Hydrolysate Alleviates Immunosuppression and Gut Microbiota Imbalance Induced by Cyclophosphamide in Balb/c Mice through the NF-κB Pathway

“…Past studies have demonstrated that the immunomodulatory ability of peptides depends on their amino acid composition, sequence, length, charge, hydrophobicity and structure [ 1 ]. The amino acids in sea cucumber are rich, including all types of essential amino acids and non−essential amino acids, and have a high content of amino acids such as glycine, glutamic acid, proline, and alanine [ 22 ]. Similarly, the amino acid composition analysis of SCH in this study revealed a high content of glycine, glutamic acid, alanine, and proline.…”

Food Peptides for the Nutricosmetic Industry

“…The capillary isoelectric focusing electrophoresis separates analytes based on their different isoelectric points. It is generally used to separate peptide isomers [ 65 , 66 , 67 ].…”

Sea cucumber-derived compounds for treatment of dyslipidemia: A review

“…Furthermore, these peptides enhance the expression of LPL and CPT1 , which are key rate-limiting enzyme genes for lipoprotein hydrolysis and FA β-oxidation, respectively ( Yu et al, 2020 ). The peptides isolated from sea cucumber Stichopus japonicas can increase the content of unsaturated lipids in mouse and rat hippocampus ( Lu et al, 2022a ). As unsaturated lipids can modulate lipid metabolism ( Djuricic and Calder, 2021 ; Mitrovic et al, 2022 ), the above results suggest that peptides alleviate hyperlipidemia by regulating the metabolism of unsaturated lipids.…”

“…The saponins from Holothuria lessoni contribute to the anti-oxidant activity of this sea cucumber extracts ( Bahrami et al, 2018 ). The health-beneficial effects including antioxidant, anti-diabetes, and immunomodulatory activities of sea cucumber peptides have been recently reviewed ( Lu et al, 2022a ).…”