Characteristics of Enzymatic Hydrolysis of Protein from Different Food Sources and Potential Separation Techniques

Enzymatic hydrolysis (EH) of proteins relies essentially upon enhancing the functional and nutritional properties of proteins, such as antioxidant activity, solubility, oil holding capacity, water holding capacity, emulsification, foaming properties, and sensory properties. There is a big challenge for protein separation and purification due to the high production cost, the large number of amino acids, and the complex biological system of proteins. These biological structures are always presented in a multi-component mixture in native environments, which are usually similar to other molecular weights of other components, such as protein-lipid complexes. These difficulties present the importance of a combination of the hydrolysis process of protein with adequate technology for separation and purification to achieve better bioactive peptide recovery. There are many studies conducted dealing with the characteristics of the hydrolysis process of proteins, and other implications, such as the separation of protein and bioactive peptides. Therefore, this study aims to review the important and recent research papers that investigated the effect of various conditions of the enzymatic hydrolysis process (EHP) (type of enzyme, enzyme to substrate ratio, temperature, pH, and time) on the antioxidant capacity of protein hydrolysates and degree of hydrolysis, as well as to assess the recent studies about protein purification and potential separation techniques.