Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Food Measurement and Characterization https://doi.org/10.1007/s11694-017-9685-0 ORIGINAL PAPER Antiproliferative and antioxidative activities of cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) protein hydrolysates as affected by degree of hydrolysis Ali Hamzeh 1  · Masoud Rezaei 1  · Saber Khodabandeh 2  · Ali Motamedzadegan 3  · Mehrdad Noruzinia 4 Received: 10 April 2017 / Accepted: 14 November 2017 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract Bioactivities (including antioxidative and antiproliferative properties) of cuttlefish mantle protein hydrolysates (CPH) with the degree of hydrolysis (DH) of 20.9, 25.5, 30.6, 35.3 and 40.6% (shortened as 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40%, respectively) prepared using alcalase were evaluated. The results indicated that the CPH with 20, 30 and 40% DH showed the greatest activity against DPPH radical scavenging [5.2 µmol TE (torolox equivalent)/g sample], reducing power (0.4 absorbance at 700 nm) and total antioxidant capacity (0.6 mg ascorbic acid equivalent/g sample), which were 2.5, 6.5 and 13.8 times higher than the cuttlefish mantle protein isolate (CPI), respectively. The CPH with the DH of 20% had the highest effect against MDA-231 and T47D cancer cell lines with growth inhibition of 78.2 and 66.2%, which were 6.5 and 6 times higher activities compared to the CPI, respectively. The amino acid profile of CPH indicated that glutamine (15.7%) and asparagine (10.9%) were predominant. Keywords Antioxidant · Antiproliferate · Protein hydrolysate · Cuttlefish · Sepia pharaonis Introduction Oxidation is an unavoidable process in all living creatures in which reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as free radicals are formed [1]. The ROS can attack biomolecules such as membrane lipids, proteins and DNA leading to many dis- eases such as cancer [2]. In recent years, extensive scientific evidence has been provided for the existence of biological active peptides and proteins derived from foods that might have beneficial effects upon human health without any side effects [3]. Hydrolysates from marine resources have been reported to show bioactive properties as antioxidative, anti- cancer, antihypertensive, antithrombotic and immunomodu- latory compounds [4, 5]. Moreover, resistance to anticancer drugs has been reported, and there is a growing interest in the identification and characterization of more effective and less toxic natural antitumor agents. The elimination of can- cer with natural food ingredients, such as fish protein hydro- lysates in the early stages is an integral part of chemopreven- tion, and measuring the cytotoxic properties of a given food compound against cancer cells provides useful insight into its chemoprotective potential [6]. Among all the potential processes, using enzymes are more reproducible and varied than chemical hydrolysis [7, 8]. It has been reported that the choices of substrate, protease and especially degree of hydrolysis (DH) generally affect the properties of the resulting hydrolysates [7]. The antiproliferative activity of peptides derived from fish protein hydrolysates was rarely studied in which hydro- lysates from blue whiting, cod, plaice and salmon [9] tuna dark muscle [10] and jumbo squid [11] have shown to inhibit MCF7/6, MDA-MB-231; MCF-7 and M12.C3F6 cell lines, respectively. However, there is no information * Masoud Rezaei rezai_ma@modares.ac.ir Ali Hamzeh ahamze86@gmail.com Saber Khodabandeh surp78@gmail.com Ali Motamedzadegan amotgan@yahoo.com Mehrdad Noruzinia noruzinia@modares.ac.ir 1 Department of Seafood Processing, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor, Iran 2 Department of Marine Biology, Tarbiat Modares University, Noor, Iran 3 Department of Food Science, Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Sari, Sari, Iran 4 Department of Hematology, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran