Milk-borne bioactive peptides

Milk is now known to contain an array of bioactivities which extends the range of influence of mother over young beyond nutrition alone. Bioactivities in milk include modulators of digestive and gastrointestinal (GI) functions, hemodynamics (GI blood flow, hypertension), along with hormones and growth factors (mammary or infant development) probiotic microbial growth control, immunoregulation, nonimmune disease defense. Many milk borne bioactivities are latent, requiring proteolytic release of bioactive peptides from inactive native milk proteins, and therefore depend on protease activitiy at a target tissue site such as the GI tract of the suckling. Several bioactivities of milk involve interaction of peptide or protein and non-peptide components of milk, and are kinetically dependent on the time available for action and the concentration of reactants. Hence, factors which alter the kinetic environment within the GI tract may indirectly but profoundly influence overall milk bioactivities within the GI tract of the suckling. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.