Numerous bioactive peptides have been identified from edible insect species, including peptides that were enzymatically liberated from insect proteins and endogenous peptides that occur naturally in insects. The peptides exhibited diverse bioactivities, encompassing antioxidant, anti-angiotensin-converting enzyme, anti-dipeptidyl peptidase-IV, anti-glucosidase, anti-lipase, anti-lipoxygenase, anti-cyclooxygenase, anti-obesity, and hepatoprotective activities. Such findings point to their potential contribution to solving human health problems related to inflammation, free radical damage, diabetes, hypertension, and liver damage, among others. Bioactive peptides may have a positive impact on body functions and thus benefit human health. New information reporting their beneficial effects on the health of livestock and plants is also emerging. Bioactive peptides may be produced endogenously in humans, animals, and plants.
Bioactive peptides may have a positive impact on body functions and thus benefit human health [1,2][1][2]. New information reporting their beneficial effects on the health of livestock and plants is also emerging. Bioactive peptides may be produced endogenously in humans, animals, and plants. Furthermore, such peptides can also be released from protein sources by enzymatic hydrolysis or prepared by chemical synthesis [3,4][3][4]. While bioactive peptides identified from hydrolyzed food proteins often range between two and twenty amino acid residues, longer endogenous peptides that occur naturally in humans and animals have been discovered [5]. The composition and sequence of amino acids determine the activity of bioactive peptides [6]. Bioactive peptides play important roles in the cardiovascular, immune, nervous, digestive, and endocrine systems. They represent a new generation of bioactive regulators, displaying hormone or drug-like activities, and exhibiting antioxidant, anticancer, antithrombotic, antihypertensive, anti-obesity, anti-inflammatory, opioid, mineral binding, immunomodulatory, antiaging, and antimicrobial effects [7,8,9,10,11][7][8][9][10][11]. Bioactive peptides exhibit high specificity in terms of target tissues and consequently possess low or no toxicity. Importantly, they are effective at even relatively low concentrations, which is especially important in the treatment of chronic diseases [5].
45,46][23][24][25]. As a result, the development of agents that reduce oxidative stress has piqued the interest of both academic research and the pharmaceutical industry. Many antioxidant peptides have been isolated from edible insects. Most of the examined edible insects’ antioxidant capacities were investigated primarily using 2,2′-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) and 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assays. The peptide FDPFPK is one of the most potent antioxidant peptides among those listed in Table 2. This synthetic peptide isolated from baked locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) showed strong ABTS•+ and DPPH• scavenging capacity with IC50 values of 0.08 and 0.35 mg/mL, respectively [47,48][26][27]. The antioxidant activity of Egyptian cotton leafworm hydrolysate produced by simulated gastrointestinal digestion (SGD) has been studied more thoroughly using cellular and in vivo antioxidant assays [49][28]. The in vivo Caenorhabditis elegans antioxidant model is regarded as an effective model organism for nutritional evaluation, including bioactive peptides. These nematodes have advantages over other in vivo models due to their short life span and, most notably, their high level of gene conservation relative to humans. Therefore, the antioxidant activity of Egyptian cotton leafworm hydrolysate, as measured by the in vivo Caenorhabditis elegans antioxidant model, could be regarded as promising and potentially translatable for human health applications.
A wide variety of pathological conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes complications, obesity, and cancer, have been linked to oxidative stress [44,