Protein hydrolysates of a probiotic strain of Lactobacillus plantarum as new promising sources of inhibitors for diabetes regulatory enzymes

ABSTRACT

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder characterized by persistent hyperglycaemia. It has been classified as one of the main pathologies that promotes the most severe and fatal forms of COVID-19. Although there are nowadays synthetic molecules for the regulation of this disease, their disastrous side effects still open up prospects for the search of new and healthy molecules of therapeutic interest. This study aimed at evaluating the inhibitory effect of peptides extracts produced during the cultivation of a Lactobacillus plantarum strain with probiotic properties. The peptides extracts were obtained by thermal hydrolysis of protein extracts at 70 degrees C or 80 degrees C for 10, 20 and 30 min. The potential hypoglycaemic activity was examined by testing their inhibitory effect on amylolytic enzymes. Our results showed that the studied proteins hydrolysates, when used at 0.024 mg (biomass) or 0.156 mg (growth broth), were capable of total inhibition of amylolytic enzymes activity. The biomass peptides showed higher inhibition rate compared to 95% obtained with 0.050 mg of acarbose, a potent and widely used anti-diabetic inhibitory. This study clearly shows that the investigated protein hydrolysates contain interesting inhibitory peptides that deserve further investigations for their real use as bioactive inhibitors of diabetes regulating enzymes.