As reported, human milk contains many kinds of bioactive compounds including several soluble proteins like lactoferrin, cytokines, growth factors, nucleotides, antibodies to bacterial, viral, and protozoal antigens for compensating physiological delay in developing immune systems in growing infants. So it has been considered as the ideal food for the infants. Such compounds may contain an assembly of functions, Interestingly, most of the time, the wide variety of bioactivities are accomplished by the combination of bioactive proteins or by gastrointestinal release of bioactive peptides derived from larger proteins. Remarkably, some functions are not directly attributed to the parental proteins, but solely to bioactive fragment peptides.

In the new research, 24 peptides was separated and purified from human milk using RP-HPLC. Multifunctional roles including antimicrobial, antioxidant and growth stimulating activity have been evaluated 24 fractions. In the result. The majority of fractions (50%) have peptides with molecular masses between 2 and 5 kD and only four fractions(2.8.12.23 fractions) show multiple combined activities among them. Using a proteomic approach, two of these four peptides have been identified as lactoferrin derived peptide and kappa casein short chain peptide. In the light of these findings, human milk derived specific multifunctional peptides may provide a value added product in the nutraceutical and cosmetic industries, and particularly for the better development of neonates.

Reference:

milkSanti M. Mandal, Rashmi Bharti, William F. Porto. Identification of multifunctional peptides from human milk, Peptides, 56 (2014): 84–93.