Whey as source of peptides with high antioxidant activity: use of a pancreatin and an Aspergillus sojae protease

Resumo

The use of enzymes in the hydrolytic process may release bioactive peptides from food proteins. A pancreatin and an Aspergillus sojae protease were the proteases used in this study for obtaining whey peptides with high antioxidant activity (AnAc), at enzyme:substrate (E:S) ratios of 0.5:100, 1:100, 2:100, 3:100, 4:100 and 8:100. The DPPH (2-difenyl-1-picryl-hydrazil), the deoxyribose and the pyrogaloll methods were used for evaluating the AnAc. The highest AnAc were reached at an E:S ratio of 8:100 by using the pancreatin (60.67%) and the A. sojae protease (59.70%). The ability to use a low E:S ratio for reducing the costs for scaling-up the process was observed for the Aspergillus sojae protease with the deoxyribose and pyrogallol methods because the highest AnAc were obtained with an E:S ratio of 2:100 (P3: 58.77% and 47.18%, respectively).