Ricerc@Sapienza

Short peptides are important compounds in a variety of fields, including food and nutraceutical applications, but also biomarker discovery, bioactive peptide discovery and peptide drug separation. Despite the importance of short peptides, they are currently less studied than other peptides because of the lack of dedicated methods for their characterization. The method described in this paper comprises a combination of strategies to tackle the main limitations in short peptide analysis.

The combination of an efficient chromatographic separation with post-column addition of a supercharging agent was evaluated for the determination of small peptides. The procedure takes advantage of porous graphitic carbon (PGC) ability in retaining very polar and ionic molecules to overstep the poor retention of small peptides on conventional reversed phase (RP) columns. The method was developed specifically for the most hydrophilic di-, tri- and tetrapeptides, which are not identified in ordinary peptidomics experiments.

Inflammation and oxidative stress are always more recognized as responsible for chronic disease at the intestinal level. Currently, a growing interest is addressed to the discovery of diet-derived products which have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. This work aims to characterize the pharmacological potential of dehydrated potatoes. For this purpose, a simulated gastrointestinal digestion was carried out.