Physicochemical and Biological Properties of Eel By-Products Protein Hydrolysates: Potential Application to Meat Product Preservation

European eel by-products have been hydrolysed in order to produce novel bioactive peptides with antibacterial and antioxidant activity. Protein hydrolysates from Anguilla by-products obtained by treatment with Savinase® (PHAB-s) have high protein content than that produced with Protamex® (PHAB-p). Furthemore, both protein hydrolysates had a high percentage of essential amino acids. In addition, results indicated that PHAB-s and PHAB-p exhibited different degrees of antioxidant activities, evaluated by several antioxidant assays. Thus, PHAB-s displayed high antioxidant activity, in terms of DPPH-radical scavenging effect (IC50 = 5.2 mg/ml), β-carotene bleaching inhibitory effect (CI50 = 4.4 mg/ml) and metal chelating activity. At 10 mg/ml, PHAB-p showed the highest reducing power. Antibacterial activities of PHAB-s and PHAB-p were also evaluated. PHAB-s showed the most important inhibitory effects against seven bacterial species. The application of PHAB-s and PHAB-p on minced meat as preservative reduced the lipid oxidation and inhibited the microbial growth during chilled storage for 11 days.