Structure and regulatory mechanisms of food-derived peptides in inflammatory bowel disease: A review

The number of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is increasing worldwide. Since IBD is a chronic disease that seriously affects patients' life quality, preventing and alleviating IBD with natural and less side effect substances has become a research hotspot. Food-derived bioactive peptides have been an attractive research focus due to their high efficiency and low toxicity. This paper comprehensively summarizes food-derived peptides with intestinal health effects, focusing on peptide sequences with IBD-regulatory effects and emphasizing the effects of their structure and physicochemical properties such as peptide length, amino acid composition, and net charge on their function. We also analyzed its regulatory mechanisms, mainly in 5 aspects: modulating the intestinal microbiota, decreasing intestinal epithelial permeability, increasing antioxidant ability, regulating the expression of inflammatory cytokines, and targeting signaling pathways. This review will help establish novel, efficient screening methods for IBD-regulatory peptides and contribute to further research and discovery of them.