Computational Screening for the Dipeptidyl Peptidase-IV Inhibitory Peptides from Putative Hemp Seed Hydrolyzed Peptidome as a Potential Antidiabetic Agent

Dipeptidyl peptidase-IV (DPPIV) inhibitory peptides are a class of antihyperglycemic drugs used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, a metabolic disorder resulting from reduced levels of the incretin hormone GLP-1. Given that DPPIV degrades incretin, a key regulator of blood sugar levels, various antidiabetic medications that inhibit DPPIV, such as vildagliptin, sitagliptin, and linagliptin, are employed. However, the potential side effects of these drugs remain a matter of debate. Therefore, we aimed to investigate food-derived peptides from Cannabis sativa (hemp) seeds. Our developed bioinformatics pipeline was used to identify the putative hydrolyzed peptidome of three highly abundant proteins: albumin, edestin, and vicilin. These proteins were subjected to in silico digestion by different proteases (trypsin, chymotrypsin, and pepsin) and then screened for DPPIV inhibitory peptides using IDPPIV-SCM. To assess potential adverse effects, several prediction tools, namely, TOXINpred, AllerCatPro, and HemoPred, were employed to evaluate toxicity, allergenicity, and hemolytic effects, respectively. COPID was used to determine the amino acid composition. Molecular docking was performed using GalaxyPepDock and HPEPDOCK, 3D visualizations were conducted using the UCSF Chimera program, and MD simulations were carried out with AMBER20 MD software. Based on the predictive outcomes, FNVDTE from edestin and EAQPST from vicilin emerged as promising candidates for DPPIV inhibitors. We anticipate that our findings may pave the way for the development of alternative DPPIV inhibitors.