Advance on the benefits of bioactive peptides from buckwheat

Buckwheat is a kind cereal mainly grown in cold plateau and mountainous districts. The seeds and food production made from buckwheat demonstrated great nutritional value and protective effects towards various kinds of disease. In this review, the antibacterial, trypsin inhibiting, antitumor, hypocholesterol, hypotensive and antidiabetic effects of buckwheat proteins and their enzyme hydrolysates were summarized and discussed. Many naturally occurring peptides isolated from buckwheat seeds are certified to be multiple functional compounds, such as buckwheat antimicrobial peptides, trypsin inhibitors, antitumor proteins, hypotensive peptides and antioxidant peptides. Besides its trypsin inhibiting activity upon proteases, buckwheat trypsin inhibitors also revealed antimicrobial activity towards fungi, Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and antitumor activity against various kinds of cancer cells. The antitumor effects and the trypsin inhibiting activity are related with the special active site of the peptide molecules, while the hypolipidemic property and the hypotensive activity are most probably associating with the unique amino acids composition of buckwheat proteins, for the reason that the hydrolyzed small peptides still possess the relevant activity. Buckwheat peptides show prospective application in function food area and traditional medicine research. And structure-activity relationship of peptides attracts much more interests in recent years.