A systematic review on marine umami peptides: Biological sources, preparation methods, structure-umami relationship, mechanism of action and biological activities

Umami peptide (UP) is an important flavor substance from natural proteins, which can make foods have a more harmonious and rich taste. In addition, UPs have a variety of significant biological activities, such as lowering blood pressure, antioxidant, and hypolipidemia activities. Recently, UPs derived from marine organisms have been reported in a growing number of studies, and marine organism proteins have been considered as important bioresource of UPs, which not only produce high-quality UPs, but also solve the problem of efficient utilization of low-value seafood products and their processing by-products. Although reports of the preparation, structure, and activity of UPs have increased tremendously. However, research on UPs derived from marine organism proteins still lacks a systematic review and evaluation. Therefore, this review summarizes recent advances in UPs derived from marine organism proteins, mainly including: (i) Biological sources of marine UPs; (ii) Preparation process of marine UPs; (iii) Separation, purification and identification methods of marine UPs; (iv) Structure and structure-umami relationship of marine UPs; (v) Umami receptors and mechanism of action of marine UPs; (vi) Biological activity and application of marine UPs. Therefore, this review provides a timely reference for the development of new marine UPs in functional foods and nutritional supplements.