Abstract
The fishing industry generates tons of waste of great intrinsic value due to its high content of biomolecules such as proteins. The processing of proteins can result in products with high nutritional, pharmacological, and technological interest due to the peptides that can be derived from them. This review work compiles the investigations that have performed on the production of peptides from proteins of fish origin using pepsin as catalyst from the corresponding hydrolytic reaction, with special emphasis on the description of each of the reported biological properties, as well as on some uses that have been explored for these peptides. This work may be useful to promote new research involving the use of pepsin in the production of bioactive peptides from fishery products, as well as for the development of mechanisms that allow their use in different industrial processes.
•Pepsin can be used in the production of peptides with biological properties.•Fish proteins are an important source of bioactive peptides.•More studies should be done on optimization of protein hydrolysis with pepsin.•Further in vivo studies are needed to assess the biological potential of peptides.