In silico comparison of bioactive peptides derived from three microalgae RuBisCO enzyme with commonly consumed proteins

Nowadays, bioactive peptides are one of the important tools in improvement of human health. Microalgae proteins may be a good alternative to expensive sources such as meat and milk as precursors for production of bioactive peptides. RuBisCO is a hexadecameric enzyme composed of eight large subunits and eight small subunits, and accounts for 2 to 10 percent of the total cell protein.

RuBisCO protein belonging to three microalgae (Arthrospira plantensis (Spirulina), Dunaliella salina, Haematococcus pluvialis) were in silico digested enzymatically. The antioxidant properties, inhibition of angiotensin-converting enzyme and dipeptidyl peptidase-4, activation of ubiquitin mediated proteolysis of resulted peptides were compared with peptides products of commonly used proteins such as meat and milk by using various bioinformatics databases such as BIOPEP, ProtParam, PeptiDeranker, Pepcalc and ToxinPred.

a wide range of bioactive peptides with multiple capabilities were predicted during digestion of large and small subunits of RuBisCO with human, plant and microbial digestive enzymes. The results confirm high rank and low toxicity of these RuBisCO derived peptides in comparison with peptides derived from meat and milk proteins.

It seems that the RuBisCO derived active peptides of microalgae have a good function as antioxidant, anti-cancer, anti-allergy and anti-atherosclerotic. This advantage is due to the composition of its amino acids. Probably, preparation of a complement product consisting of the three microalgae peptides will be a perfect supplement for the treatment of some diseases.