CHAPTER 17: Advances in the Use of Bioinformatics to Discover Biofunctional Food Peptides

Bioinformatics plays an important role in the prediction, discovery and analysis of food peptide functionalities. These functionalities could be desirable (bioactivities, tastant-evoking) or undesirable (toxicity and allergenicity). When compared with conventional straight ‘wet’ synthesis methods, the bioinformatics-inspired approach utilizes the predictive powers of in silico tools to forecast and study desired physicochemical features and functionalities, before experimental validations are performed. This helps save time, resources and overall development costs. In this chapter, some useful bioinformatics tools for the discovery of food-derived bioactive peptides and prediction of peptide characteristics and bioactivities are discussed.