Antioxidant activity measurement and potential antioxidant peptides exploration from hydrolysates of novel continuous microwave-assisted enzymolysis of the Scomberomorus niphonius protein

- A cMAED method was developed for protein digestion to obtain antioxidant peptides.
- The cMAED is superior to the CHED for antioxidant peptide acquisition.
- Eight potential antioxidant peptides were identified and discussed.

A novel continuous microwave-assisted enzymatic digestion (cMAED) method is proposed for the digestion of protein from Scomberomorus niphonius to obtain potential antioxidant peptides. In this study, bromelain was found to have a high capacity for the digestion of the Scomberomorus niphonius protein. The following cMAED conditions were investigated: protease species, microwave power, temperature, bromelain content, acidity of the substrate solution, and incubation time. At 400 W, 40 °C, 1500 U·g−1 bromelain, 20% substrate concentration, pH 6.0 and 5 min incubation, the degree of hydrolysis and total antioxidant activity of the hydrolysates were 15.86% and 131.49 μg·mL−1, respectively. The peptide analyses showed that eight of the potential antioxidant peptide sequences, which ranged from 502.32 to 1080.55 Da with 4-10 amino acid residues, had features typical of well-known antioxidant proteins. Thus, the new cMAED method can be useful to obtain potential antioxidant peptides from protein sources, such as Scomberomorus niphonius.