Ricerc@Sapienza

Agriculture and food processing industry generate a huge amount of waste streams that are often not properly taken care of, both in environmental and economic terms. Therefore, in the last years there has been great social and environmental interest for their efficient reuse. Since these residues are often rich in bioactive compounds potentially suitable from a variety of applications (nutraceuticals, drugs for the prevention or treatment of pathologies, cosmetic ingredients, active agents for smart packaging, etc.), the identification and recovery of such compounds would turn waste into a valuable product, thus improving the ecosustainability of cultivations by reducing waste disposal.
The objective of this project is the development of a new systematic analytical approach for the recovery, identification and isolation of bioactive peptides from plant waste and for the characterization of their biological activity. To achieve this result, research and development activities will be performed in three different areas. New extraction and purification protocols; highly predictive screening bioassays and comprehensive proteomic approaches to investigate the proteome of the selected plant models and to identify the molecules responsible for biological activity.