The objective of this study was to prepare antioxidant peptides from duck meat hydrolysate (DMH) using Protamex. The DPPH(•) scavenging activity, hydroxyl radical ((•)OH) scavenging activity, and Fe(2+)-chelating ability of DMH were investigated. DMH was separated into three groups, MWCO-1 (69.57%), MWCO-2 (9.53%), and MWCO-3 (8.21%), by ultrafiltration. MWCO-3 exhibited the highest DPPH(•) scavenging activity (83.17 ± 0.73%) and was subsequently fractionated by using gel filtration chromatography to obtain fraction B (40.90%). Fraction B5 (6.71%) obtained from ion exchange chromatography exhibited the highest DPPH(•) scavenging activity (93.63 ± 0.13%) and contained seven peptides which were characterized by LC-MS/MS. Among these peptides, LQAEVEELRAALE showed the highest DPPH(•) scavenging activity (93.36 ± 0.53%) and Fe(2+)-chelating ability (87.13 ± 0.47%) and IEDPFDQDDWGAWKK exhibited the highest (•)OH scavenging activity (46.51 ± 0.16%). The results presented here indicated that DMH could serve as a suitable source of antioxidant peptides.
Keywords: antioxidant capacity of duck peptides; duck meat derived antioxidant peptides; duck meat hydrolysate; duck meat protein enzymatic hydrolysis.