Fibroin and sericin-derived bioactive peptides and hydrolysates as alternative sources of food additive for promotion of human health: A review

Abstract

Clothing, food and housing are the fundamental three items for human beings to live humanly. Sericulture has contributed to clothing and housing for more than four thousand years via the production of clothes and goods for houses, such as curtains and bed covers, but has contributed rather little to food, except entomophagy or eating larvae or pupae inside cocoons. When we consider ingestion of silk proteins, fi broin and sericin, from cocoons in the form of bioactive peptides and hydrolysates as in bioactive peptides and hydrolysates from food proteins, such as soy, fi sh, meat, milk, egg, wheat, broccoli and rice, which are known to be benefi cial for the promotion of human health, modern sericulture should contribute to food, and therefore contribute to clothing, food and housing equally. For the preparation of bioactive peptides and hydrolysates from fi broin and sericin, enzymatic hydrolysis is a powerful tool. Based on our experience of the study of silk digestion enzyme for more than twenty years, in this review we summarize current knowledge of bioactive peptides and hydrolysates prepared from fi broin and sericin from domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, as well as from wild silkmoths, by proteases and their potency for the promotion of human health. Although the number of bioactive peptides and hydrolysates from fi broin and sericin is currently limited, we believe more products will be added in the future from fi broin and sericin and the contribution of modern sericulture to the promotion of human health from this aspect is likely to be assured. We encourage researchers related to silk proteins, fi broin and sericin, to perform further comprehensive studies on bioactive peptides and hydrolysates from fi broin and sericin from domesticated silkworm and wild silkmoths, both of which should provide fruitful resources for the welfare of human beings.

Keywords

• fibroin
• sericin
• bioactive peptides
• bombyx mori
• wild silkmoths