New perspectives on fabrication of peptide-based nanomaterials in food industry: A review

Background Bioactivity and self-assembly are two important properties of peptides. Over the past several decades, rapid advances have been made in the application of bioactive peptide and peptide self-assembled nanomaterials. The combination of bioactivity and self-assembly properties of peptides will introduce new perspectives for food structure design and functional food creation to meet more specific food industry application needs. Scope and approach In this review, a comprehensive overview of bioactivity and self-assembly of peptides is provided. The fabrication strategy and application prospects of self-assembling bioactive peptide-based materials are introduced. Additionally, we summarize the research limitations to be solved and put forward our perspectives for the future development of self-assembling bioactive peptides. Key findings and conclusions Peptides show diverse bioactivities and play an important role in regulating the physiological functions of various body systems. The powerful self-assembly property of peptides promotes the formation of controllable supramolecular structures. More importantly, self-assembling bioactive peptides provide approaches to fabricate functional nanomaterials for food creation and have great application prospects in the food field. These advances implicate the bright prospect of nanomaterials of self-assembling bioactive peptides in future food creation.