What question did this study set out to answer?

To characterize bioactive peptides derived from yellowfin tuna by-products and evaluate their neuro-related activities.

April 8, 2026Current Issues in Molecular Biology0 citationsOpen Access

Bioactive Peptides from Yellowfin Tuna By-Products: Structural Characterization and Neuro-Related Activities in PC12 Cells

YKYaqi KongShanghai Ocean University YLYifan LiuShanghai Ocean University HYH. C. YangBeijing Botanical Garden

Key Points

To characterize bioactive peptides derived from yellowfin tuna by-products and evaluate their neuro-related activities.
Peptides were extracted from yellowfin tuna by-products.
Fractionation was performed using Sephadex G-25 gel filtration.
Physicochemical analyses included TGA/DSC, FTIR, and circular dichroism.
Cytocompatibility and neurochemical factor levels were assessed in differentiated PC12 cells.
TBP-MF showed enhanced thermal stability and a defined secondary structure.
In PC12 cells, TBP-MF increased metabolic activity as indicated by CCK-8 assays.
TBP-MF significantly elevated key neurochemical factors such as serotonin and GABA.

Abstract

Marine-derived bioactive peptides have attracted increasing attention as value-added functional ingredients. In this study, peptides (<3 kDa) were prepared from yellowfin tuna processing by-products and further fractionated by Sephadex G-25 gel filtration. The major fraction (TBP-MF) exhibited markedly improved compositional homogeneity compared with the unfractionated hydrolysate (TBP), providing a well-defined peptide system for subsequent characterization and biological evaluation. Physicochemical analyses demonstrated that TBP-MF possessed enhanced thermal stability and a more ordered secondary structure, characterized by pronounced β-sheet enrichment, as revealed by TGA/DSC, FTIR, and circular dichroism analyses. Morphological and colloidal characterization further showed that TBP-MF formed relatively uniform lamellar and fibrous assemblies with a narrower particle size distribution and reduced electrostatic stabilization, indicating a higher tendency toward ordered self-association. Peptidomic profiling combined with in silico analysis revealed that TBP-MF was enriched in short peptides with relatively higher PeptideRanker scores and a functional motif distribution containing relatively more neuro-related annotations, although angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE)- and dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP-IV)-related motifs remained predominant in both groups. In differentiated PC12 cells, TBP-MF exhibited excellent cytocompatibility and induced a stable, concentration-dependent increase in the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) readout (OD450), indicating enhanced cellular metabolic activity and/or increased cell number. In addition, TBP-MF significantly increased intracellular levels of key neurochemical factors associated with sleep-related regulation, including tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4), serotonin (5-HT), and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Overall, this study highlights yellowfin tuna by-products as a promising marine resource for bioactive peptides and suggests that fractionation-driven structural refinement is associated with neuro-related biological activity in differentiated PC12 cells. These findings support the potential application of marine by-product-derived peptides as functional ingredients in health-related fields.

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Cite This Study

Kong et al. (Fri,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69d5f13674eaea4b11a7abb3 https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3390/cimb48040374

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