Soybeans (Glycine max) are an excellent source of dietary proteins and peptides with potential biological activities, such as antihypertensive, anti-cholesterol, and antioxidant activity; moreover, they could prevent cancer. Also, soy contains all the essential amino acids for nutrition; therefore, it represents an alternative to animal proteins. The goal of this paper was the comprehensive characterization of medium-sized and short peptides (two to four amino acids) obtained from simulated gastrointestinal digestion. Two different analytical approaches were employed for peptide characterization, namely a common peptidomic analysis for medium-sized peptides and a suspect screening analysis for short peptides, employing an inclusion list of exact m/z values of all possible amino acid combinations. Moreover, fractionation by preparative reversed-phase liquid chromatography was employed to simplify the starting protein hydrolysate. Six fractions were collected and tested for antioxidative activity by an innovative antioxidant assay on human gastric adenocarcinoma AGS cell lines. The two most active fractions (2 and 3) were then characterized by a peptidomic approach and database search, as well as by a suspect screening approach, in order to identify potential antioxidant amino acid sequences. Some of the peptides identified in these two fractions have been already reported in the literature for their antioxidant activity.
Keywords: antioxidative activity; bioactive peptides; mass spectrometry; peptidomics; soybean.