Bovine milk proteins as the source of bioactive peptides influencing the consumers' immune system - a review.

The present review describes selected peptides derived from bovine milk proteins and demonstrates their effect on the human immune system. Apart from their obvious nutritive value milk proteins and products of their degradation (peptides) have multiple biological functions. Bovine milk, fermented milk drinks and cheeses are the most abundant sources of biologically active peptides. One of the primary functions of milk is to protect the health of a newborn organism by the virtue of the fact that milk contains many proteins, which exhibit bacteriostatic and bactericidal properties in their intact form. Ingestion of bovine milk by humans causes that bioactive peptides are evoked from delivered proteins during the course of digestion. They possess not only immunomodulatory, but also antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties.