Preparation, Purification and Characterization of Food-Derived Proteins and Bioactive Peptides—Applications in the Food Industry
A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Physics and (Bio)Chemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026 | Viewed by 20
Special Issue Editor
Interests: plant-based diets; plant protein products; protein chemistry; bioactive peptides; functional foods; nutraceuticals; food protein structure and function; immunonutrition; nutritional biochemistry; molecular nutrition
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Proteins and bioactive peptides have continued to attract considerable research attention due to their extensive functional, nutritional, and health-promoting properties. Advances in extraction techniques and novel purification methods have significantly improved yield and specificity, enabled precise structural and functional characterization, and thus broadened the utility of food-derived proteins and bioactive peptides.
Over the past decade, considerable progress has been made in identifying peptides with various bioactivities, including antioxidant, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, and immunomodulatory properties, among others. For instance, food-derived proteins from dairy, legumes, cereals, and emerging sustainable sources (e.g., algae and insects) have been reported to be rich reservoirs of bioactive peptides with those properties. Furthermore, the integration of bioinformatics and computational modeling methods with traditional peptide and protein extraction and purification protocols has further accelerated the pace of novel bioactive peptide discovery and structure–activity relationship studies.
However, in spite of these advances, challenges abound. Industrial-scale production and purification methods remain resource- and labor-intensive, and there are still other ongoing concerns such as peptide stability and bioavailability during processing and digestion, and consumer acceptability of novel protein sources. Looking ahead, would innovations in green processing technologies, peptide encapsulation, and high-throughput screening strategies provide the impetus for the next phase of producing and purifying proteins and peptides in and for the food industry?
This Special Issue is intended to be a collection of critical reports on the state of the science so far, current challenges limiting the full industrial utilization of functional proteins and bioactive peptides, and future prospects and opportunities. I look forward to receiving your submissions.
Thank you.
Dr. Ifeanyi D. Nwachukwu
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- protein extraction
- protein isolation
- enzymatic hydrolysis
- peptide quantification
- protein hydrolysates
- nutrient bioavailability
- bioprocessing
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