Antimicrobial efficacy of protein hydrolysate from underutilized fish

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for innocuous and natural antimicrobials in food preservation has been increasing, resulting in research into novel antimicrobial agents as antimicrobial peptides. Argentine croaker (Umbrina canosai) is a fish species underutilized and has low commercial value, thus attracts the interest to obtain high added-value products, such as protein hydrolysates. The objectives of this study were to obtain protein hydrolysates from Argentine croaker muscle proteins by pH shifting process and with different degrees of hydrolysis (DH: 10 – 20%) using a commercial protease and to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of the different hydrolysates obtained.