An Overview of the Potentialities of Antimicrobial Peptides Derived from Natural Sources in the Food Field

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are elements of the innate immune system of living organisms. They can act against bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, have good water solubility and are thermostable. AMPs, stable at diverse ranges of pH, temperatures, and proteases, have been selected to resist unchanged to pH and temperature variations used in food processing. The AMPs' stability can be enhanced by modifying lipophilicity, polar surface area, ovality, and surface area. The AMPs can be added to low-reactive foods, such as cereals, whole-grain bread, legumes, pseudocereals, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and should not be inserted into high-reactivity food, such as liquid-based food formulations. Instead, the AMPs' bioactivity can be affected by free amino, sulfur, and carbonyl functional groups. Their functionality and technological properties can be affected by the contemporaneous addition of the ascorbate and nitrite (which can increase the carbonyl compounds in proteins) and sulfites (which can react with the disulfide bonds of AMPs to form S-sulfonates). Nanoparticles, nanoliposomes, and nanofibers have been studied to protect the AMPs' antimicrobial activity and active packaging systems to decrease their interactions with food components. Unfortunately, the high cost of the AMPs' large-scale production limits their use in the food industry. This work summarizes the natural sources, modes of action, and applications of the AMPs' potentiality in the food industry.