Calanus finmarchicus as a novel source of health-promoting bioactive peptides: Enzymatic protein hydrolysis, characterization, and in vitro bioactivity

Calanus finmarchicus is a crustacean currently used as a source of marine lipid. The lipids are extracted by enzymatic protein hydrolysis, while the remaining peptide fraction is regarded as a byproduct. In the present work, ten different commercial proteases and endogenous C. finmarchicus proteases were used to produce a set of 63 protein hydrolysates. Protease concentration and hydrolysis time were varied. Hydrolysates were characterized using size-exclusion chromatography and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Addition of commercial proteases had unremarkable effect on the yield and molecular weight distribution. This was attributed to the strong impact of endogenous enzymes dominating the hydrolysis process. However, multivariate classification based on 1H NMR spectra revealed subtle variations in composition of hydrolysates produced using different enzymes. The hydrolysates were further evaluated for DPP-IV inhibition and antioxidant activity. The hydrolysates showed significantly higher bioactivity than the unhydrolyzed control. A representative hydrolysate (CaFi55) was fractionated using semipreparative size-exclusion chromatography. A fraction consisting of short peptides with an average chain length of five amino acids (F2), was identified as a major contributor to the DPP-IV inhibitory activity (IC50 = 0.70 ± 0.07 mg/mL).