Systematic review on functional umami peptides: Physiological perceptions, bioinformatics and peptidomics approaches, developments and applications

Abstract

Background

Given the unique sensory attributes and potential health benefits of functional umami peptides (FUPs), they have emerged as a focal point in food science research. However, challenges remain in their taste perception mechanism elucidation and discovery, thereby highlight the necessity of interdisciplinary integration, particularly with advanced fields such as peptidomics and metagenomics, to deepen our understanding of FUPs and accelerate their identification and functional characterization.

Scope and approach

This paper begins by reviewing recent progress on the taste perception mechanisms and key influencing factors of FUPs. It then summarizes the latest advancements in high-throughput FUPs discovery, driven by cutting-edge technologies including bioinformatics, metagenomics, protein engineering and peptidomics. Finally, an elaboration is provided on the current applications of FUPs in the food industry, along with an anticipation of potential future development trajectories.

Key findings and conclusions

Umami receptors are activated through dynamic binding-dissociation interactions with FUPs, with their conformational changes governed by either a stepwise activation model or an orthosteric-allosteric cooperative mechanism. The resultant neural signals undergo gustatory encoding via peripheral-central neural pathways. This sensory processing is collectively modulated by nonlinear cross-modal perceptual characteristics and physicochemical parameters within food matrices, including ionic, pH, and temperature. Integrated peptidomics elucidates the global peptide repertoire for further unraveling and consummating the above mechanisms, while microbial-proteomic multi-omics integration establishes a novel paradigm for targeted FUPs biosynthesis. Therefore, the integration of cross-disciplinary technologies will accelerate the discovery and rational design of novel FUPs, hence driving their scalable applications in flavor enhancers and functional ingredients industries.