Isolation of antioxidant peptides from clam, Meretrix casta (Chemnitz)

The antioxidant activity of marine clam, Meretrix casta (Chemnitz) protein hydrolysates prepared from different organs (body, foot and viscera), using the commercial enzymes (pepsin, trypsin and papain) were determined. The protein hydrolysate had a high antioxidant activity where, pepsin hydrolysate of viscera and trypsin hydrolysate of body and foot showed good activity. The viscera pepsin hydrolysate and foot trypsin hydrolysates were purified using FPLC on ion exchange and gel filtration chromatography procedure and activity was determined by DPPH radical scavenging and reducing ability assays. Further the amino acid content of the purified fractions was analyzed using HPLC. Active fractions contained good quantity of both essential and non-essential amino acids.