Bowman-Birk Inhibitor Mutants of Soybean Generated by CRISPR-Cas9 Reveal Drastic Reductions in Trypsin and Chymotrypsin Inhibitor Activities.

Despite the high quality of soybean protein, raw soybeans and soybean meal cannot be directly included in animal feed mixtures due to the presence of Kunitz (KTi) and Bowman-Birk protease inhibitors (BBis), which reduces animal productivity. Heat treatment can substantially inactivate trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors (BBis), but such treatment is energy-intensive, adds expense, and negatively impacts the quality of seed proteins. As an alternative approach, we have employed CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing to create mutations in BBi genes to drastically lower the protease inhibitor content in soybean seed. Agrobacterium-mediated transformation was used to generate several stable transgenic soybean events. These independent CRISPR/Cas9 events were examined in comparison to wild-type plants using Sanger sequencing, proteomic analysis, trypsin/chymotrypsin inhibitor activity assays, and qRT-PCR. Collectively, our results demonstrate the creation of an allelic series of loss-of-function mutations affecting the major BBi gene in soybean. Mutations in two of the highly expressed seed-specific BBi genes lead to substantial reductions in both trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitor activities.

Enzymatic and Algebraic Methodology to Determine the Contents of Kunitz and Bowman-Birk Inhibitors and Their Contributions to Total Trypsin or Chymotrypsin Inhibition in Soybeans.

Soybeans are the number one source of plant proteins for food and feed, but the natural presence of protein protease inhibitors (PIs), namely, the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI) and the Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI), exerts antinutritional effects. This communication describes a new methodology for simultaneously quantitating all parameters of PIs in soybeans. It consists of seven steps and featured enzymatically measuring trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitory activities, respectively, and subsequently determining the contents of reactive KTI and BBI and the contributions of each toward total PI mass and total trypsin or chymotrypsin inhibition by solving a proposed system of linear equations with two variables (C = dB + eK and T = xB + yK). This enzymatic and algebraic (EA) methodology was based on differential inhibitions of KTI and BBI toward trypsin and chymotrypsin and validated by applications to a series of mixtures of purified KTI and BBI, two KTI-null and two conventional soybeans, and by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The EA methodology allowed calculations of PI composition and the contributions of individual inhibitors toward total inhibition with ease. It was first found that although BBI constituted only about 30% of the total PI mass in conventional raw soybeans, it contributed about 80% toward total chymotrypsin inhibitor activity and about 45% toward trypsin inhibitor activity. Therefore, BBI caused more total protease inhibitions than those of KTI. Furthermore, the so-called KTI-null soybean mutants still contained measurable KTI content and thus should be named KTI-low soybeans.

Elemental sulfur concentration can be used as a rapid, reliable, and cost-effective predictor of sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds.

In this study, we have examined the feasibility of using elemental sulfur content of soybean seeds as a proxy for the overall sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds. Earlier, we have identified by high throughput ionomic phenotyping several high and low sulfur containing soybean lines from the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection. Here, we measured the cysteine and methionine content of select soybean lines by high-performance liquid chromatography. Our results demonstrate that those soybean lines which had high elemental sulfur content also had a higher cysteine and methionine content when compared to soybean lines with low elemental sulfur. SDS-PAGE and immunoblot analysis revealed that the accumulation of Bowman Birk protease inhibitor and lunasin in soybean seeds may only be marginally correlated with the elemental sulfur levels. However, we found a positive correlation between the levels of trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitor activities and elemental sulfur and sulfur amino acid content of the seeds. Thus, elemental sulfur content and/or protease inhibitor activity measurement can be utilized as a rapid and cost-effective method to predict the overall sulfur amino acid content of soybean seeds. Our findings will benefit breeders in their endeavors to develop soybean cultivars with enhanced sulfur amino acid content.

Evidence that the Bowman-Birk inhibitor from Pisum sativum affects intestinal proteolytic activities in chickens.

Chicken diet essentially relies on soybean as the major source of proteins but there are increasing efforts to identify other protein-rich feedstuffs. Of these, some pea cultivars constitute interesting sources of proteins, although some of them contain antinutritional factors that may compromise the digestibility of their protein content. Consequently, chickens exhibit low performance, while undigested compounds rejected in feces have a negative environmental impact. In this article, we analyzed the intestinal content of chickens fed a pea diet (Pisum sativum) to decipher the mechanisms that could explain such a low digestibility. Using gelatin zymography, we observed that the contents of chicken fed the pea diet exhibit altered proteolytic activities compared with intestinal contents from chickens fed a rapeseed, corn, or soybean diet. This pea-specific profile parallels the presence of a 34 kDa protein band that resists proteolysis during the digestion process. Using mass spectrometry analysis, we demonstrated that this band contains the pea-derived Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor (BBI) and 3 chicken proteases, the well-known chymotrypsinogen 2-like (CTRB2) and trypsin II-P39 (PRSS2), and the yet uncharacterized trypsin I-P38 (PRSS3). All 3 proteases are assumed to be protease targets of BBI. Molecular modeling of the interaction of pea BBI with PRSS2 and PRSS3 trypsins reveals that electrostatic features of PRSS3 may favor the formation of a BBI-PRSS3 complex at physiological pH. We hypothesize that PRSS3 is specifically expressed and secreted in the intestinal lumen to form a complex with BBI, thereby limiting its inhibitory effects on PRSS2 and chymotrypsinogen 2-like proteases. These data clearly demonstrate that in chickens, feedstuff containing active pea BBI affects intestinal proteolytic activities. Further studies on the effects of BBI on the expression of PRSS3 by digestive segments will be useful to better appreciate the impact of pea on intestine physiology and function. From these results, we suggest that PRSS3 protease may represent an interesting biomarker of digestive disorders in chickens, similar to human PRSS3 that has been associated with gut pathologies.

Ultrasound-enhanced interfacial adsorption and inactivation of soy trypsin inhibitors.

In this study, liquid-liquid interfacial protein adsorption was proposed as a means of inactivating soy trypsin inhibitors (TIs, including Kunitz (KTI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI)). Hexane-water was first selected as a model system to compare three emulsification methods (hand shaking, rotor-stator and ultrasound mixing). Ultrasound could generate the smallest and least polydisperse emulsion droplets, resulting in highest interfacial adsorption amount of KTI and BBI as well as the highest inactivation percentage of TIs (p < 0.05). Therefore, ultrasound was selected to further explore the effect of the non-aqueous phase on interfacial adsorption and inactivation kinetics of TIs in a food emulsion system containing vegetable oil (VTO). The adsorption amounts of KTI and BBI in the VTO-aqueous emulsion increased by âˆ¼ 25 % compared to the hexane-aqueous emulsion. In addition, the adsorption amounts of KTI and BBI were rapidly increased as a function of sonication time, especially for the hexane-aqueous emulsion system. This result suggests that such inactivation of TIs could be implemented in continuous systems for large-scale processing. Finally, the pathways of interface-induced inactivation of BBI and KTI were investigated based on separate experiments on individual BBI and KTI systems. The results showed that the interface adsorption caused the changes in the secondary and tertiary structure of KTI that led to its activitation. However, BBI was quite stable at the liquid-liquid interface without significant conformational change. Overall, ultrasound-assisted interfacial adsorption can be considered a rapid and highly efficient method to inactivate KTI.

Proteases, protease inhibitors and radiation carcinogenesis.

PURPOSE: The purpose of the studies described in this mini review article was to identify nontoxic compounds that could prevent or suppress the radiation induced malignant transformation of cells and be useful as human cancer preventive agents. CONCLUSIONS: (1) Many different types of potential anticarcinogenic substances were evaluated initially for their abilities to prevent or suppress radiation induced malignant transformation in vitro, and certain anticarcinogenic protease inhibitors (APIs) were observed to be the most powerful anticarcinogenic agents at suppressing this surrogate endpoint biomarker of radiation carcinogenesis. (2) Within the category of APIs, those that inhibited the activity of chymotrypsin were effective at far lower molar concentrations than other APIs. The soybean-derived protease inhibitor known as the Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI) is a particularly powerful chymotrypsin inhibitor that is able to prevent radiation induced transformation in vitro (at concentrations down to nanomolar levels) as well as radiation induced carcinogenesis in vivo without toxicity. (3) There were many other unusual characteristics of APIs that led to the selection of one of these APIs, BBI, as the most appropriate compound for us to develop as a human cancer preventive agent. As one example, the APIs have an irreversible effect on carcinogenesis, while the effects are reversible for most anticarcinogenic agents when they are removed from carcinogenesis assay systems. (4) Numerous studies were performed in attempts to determine the potential mechanisms by which the APIs could prevent or suppress radiation induced carcinogenesis in in vitro and in vivo systems, and the results of these studies are described in this review article. The APIs and the proteases which interact with them appear to play important roles in radiation carcinogenesis. (5) Preparations for human trials using BBI began decades ago. The cost of preparing purified BBI was far too high to consider performing human trials with this agent, so BBI Concentrate (BBIC), a soybean extract enriched in BBI, was developed for the specific purpose of performing human trials with BBI. BBIC achieved Investigational New Drug (IND) Status with the Food and Drug Administration in April,1992, and human BBIC trials began at that time. (6) Several human trials were performed using BBIC and they indicated many potentially beneficial health effects produced by BBIC administration to people in various forms (e.g. tablets). 7) It is hypothesized that BBI takes the place of α-1-antichymotrypsin, an important regulatory compound in the human body, and helps to maintain homeostasis.

Kinetic and mechanistic study of ultrasonic inactivation of Kunitz (KTI) and Bowman-Birk (BBI) inhibitors in relation to process-relevant parameters.

In this study, quantitative monitoring of low-frequency (20 kHz) and high-frequency (355 kHz) ultrasound-induced inactivation of Kunitz (KTI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI) using RP-HPLC was achieved, and its consistency with a traditional TI activity assay was verified. The effect of TI concentration, ultrasonic frequency, power density and pH on inactivation kinetics of KTI and BBI was explored. Results showed that the pseudo-first-order kinetic rate constants of KTI and BBI were decreased by over 60% when the initial TI concentration was increased from 100 mg/L to 1000 mg/L. Also, the amounts of inactivated KTI and BBI were increased by around 4-fold at the higher TI concentration of 1000 mg/L (20 kHz, 1.71 W/mL and pH 4). The colloidal environment and ultrasonic conditions influenced the secondary and tertiary structure and particle size of TIs in LF-induced inactivation. In comparison, the abovementioned conditions affected the oxidation of methionine and the conformational change of TIs in HF-induced inactivation.

Insight into the structural basis of the dual inhibitory mode of Lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) serine protease inhibitor.

Bovine pancreatic trypsin was crystallized, in-complex with Lima bean trypsin inhibitor (LBTI) (Phaseolus lunatus L.), in the form of a ternary complex. LBTI is a Bowman-Birk-type bifunctional serine protease inhibitor, which has two independent inhibitory loops. Both of the loops can inhibit trypsin, however, only the hydrophobic loop is specific for inhibiting chymotrypsin. The structure of trypsin incomplex with the LBTI has been solved and refined at 2.25 Å resolution, in the space group P41, with Rwork /Rfree values of 18.1/23.3. The two binding sites of LBTI differ in only two amino acids. Lysine and leucine are the key residues of the two different binding loops positioned at the P1, and involved in binding the S1 binding site of trypsin. The asymmetric unit cell contains two molecules of trypsin and one molecule of LBTI. The key interactions include hydrogen bonds between LBTI and active site residues of trypsin. The 3D structure of the enzyme-inhibitor complex provided details insight into the trypsin inhibition by LBTI. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the structure of trypsin incomplex with LBTI.

Method development and optimization for measuring chymotrypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitor activities.

Protease inhibitors of protein nature are rich in seeds of legume crops. There are two common types: Kunitz inhibitor, which mainly inhibits trypsin, and Bowman-Birk inhibitor, which inhibits both trypsin and chymotrypsin. Historically, trypsin inhibitor activity in legume products has been of primary interest for measurement. However, as plant proteins are increasingly used for food or feed in recent years, there is a growing interest in monitoring chymotrypsin inhibitor activity (CIA) in these products as well. Reported methods for CIA assay vary greatly and are incompletely described. No standardized or official method is available. The present study focused on developing a robust method for accurately measuring CIA, using N-benzoyl-L-tyrosine p-nitroanilide (BTpNA) as a substrate. Since BTpNA is not water soluble, a water-miscible organic solvent must be present. After investigating the effects of several factors, such as absorption spectra, organic solvent type and concentration, substrate and enzyme concentrations, inhibitor levels (which affected % chymotrypsin inhibition), the sequence of adding reagents, extractant and extraction time, and so forth, an optimized method for CIA measurement was finally developed. It features dimethylformamide as the organic solvent, the enzyme-last sequence, 5 ml total assay volume, and calculation of the inhibitor activity based on 40% chymotrypsin inhibition. The method can also be slightly modified for measuring chymotrypsin activity. The robust performance of the method was verified by measuring 11 assorted protein products, paving a way for standardization. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: With an increasing use of plant proteins, there is an urgent need to measure chymotrypsin inhibitor activity in various protein products with accuracy. After thoroughly investigating several factors, an optimized method for measuring chymotrypsin inhibitor activity in various protein products was developed. The proposed method is sensitive and robust, providing a basis for standardization. It can also be used for measuring chymotrypsin activity.

Determination of protease inhibitors, glycinin, and beta-conglycinin in soybeans and their relationships.

In order to search for suitable soybean varieties for different applications, the protein contents of Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI), Bowman-Birk trypsin inhibitor (BBI), glycinin (11S), and ß-conglycinin (7S) of 93 soybean samples from different sources and harvest years were quantified by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Meanwhile, the protease inhibitory activities against trypsin and chymotrypsin were determined. Results showed that the individual protein contents and trypsin inhibitor activities differed significantly (p < 0.05) among soybean samples. KTI contents ranged from 5.25 to 14.60 mg·g-1 ; BBI contents ranged from 1.81 to 5.74 mg·g-1 ; 11S varied from 13.65% to 48.55% and 7S varied from 15.68% to 42.15% of total soluble protein; trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitory activities were 8.93-20.95 mg TI·g-1 and 4.18 -12.79 mg CI·g-1 , respectively. Excellent linear relationships existed between trypsin inhibitor contents and their activities. The regression equations offer a rapid method for estimating the activity of KTI or BBI in raw soybeans. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: The regression equations established based on a large number of soybean varieties offered a rapid method to estimate the activity of trypsin inhibitors. The data presented here provided useful information for the food industry or breeders to select soybean varieties with different inhibitory activities or protein contents for different food processing applications.

Protease Inhibitors from Plants as Therapeutic Agents- A Review.

Plant-based diets are a great source of protease inhibitors (PIs). Two of the most well-known families of PIs are Bowman-Birk inhibitors (BBI) and Kunitz-type inhibitors (KTI). The first group acts mainly on trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase; the second is on serine, cysteine, and aspartic proteases. PIs can retard or inhibit the catalytic action of enzymes; therefore, they are considered non-nutritional compounds; nevertheless, animal studies and cell line experiments showed promising results of PIs in treating human illnesses such as obesity, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory processes, and different types of cancer (gastric, colorectal, breast, and lung cancer). Anticarcinogenic activity's proposed mechanisms of action comprise several inhibitory effects at different molecular levels, i.e., transcription, post-transcription, translation, post-translation, and secretion of cancer cells. This work reviews the potential therapeutic applications of PIs as anticarcinogenic and anti-inflammatory agents in human diseases and the mechanisms by which they exert these effects.

Inhibitory effect of Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor on autophagy in MDAMB231 breast cancer cell line.

BACKGROUND: Autophagy has an essential role in cellular energetic balance, cell cycle, and cell death, so the change in autophagy level is crucial in many human diseases such as cancer. Herbal medicine has been widely used to treat cancer. Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor (BBI), a protease inhibitor extracted from soybean, has antitumorigenic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-angiogenic activities. In this study, we evaluated the effect of BBI on the growth of breast cancer cell line and transcript level of autophagy and apoptosis-related genes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: BBI was purified from soybean by ion-exchange chromatography method. The viability of MDA-MB-231 cells that were treated with BBI was measured by MTT assay, and the transcript level of genes involved in autophagy and apoptosis was measured by real-time-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. RESULTS: The results of BBI purification showed that 100 g of the ethanolic fraction yielded 300-mg BBI with more than 95% purity. MTT results revealed that BBI inhibited the cell growth of MDA-MB-231 cell line in a dose-dependent manner, with an IC50 of 200 µg/mL. The results of real-time reverse transcription-PCR exhibited that BBI altered the expression of Atg5, Beclin1, light chain 3-II, and sequestosome1 and increased the Bax/Bcl2 ratio in MDA-MB-231 cell line. CONCLUSION: According to our results, BBI could inhibit autophagy and induce apoptosis in MDA-MB-231 cell line. Thus, BBI may be used as a therapeutic drug in the treatment of breast cancer whether alone or with chemotherapeutic drugs.

Characterization of a Bowman-Birk type trypsin inhibitor purified from seeds of Solanum surattense.

A Bowman-Birk type trypsin inhibitor protein (SSTI) from seeds of the medicinal plant Solanum surattense was isolated, purified and characterized. SSTI showed a single band on SDS-PAGE corresponding to 11.4 kDa molecular weight. It is a glycoprotein (2.8% glycosylation) that differentially interacted with trypsin and chymotrypsin in a concentration-dependent manner. Its peptide sequence is similar to other Bowman-Birk type protease inhibitors found in Glycine max and Phaseolus acutifolius. The inhibitory activity was stable over a wide range of pH (1-10) and temperatures (10-100° C). Far-UV Circular Dichroism (CD) studies showed that SSTI contains ß sheets (~ 23%) and α helix (~ 6%) and demonstrated structural stability at wide pH and high temperature. The kinetic analysis revealed a noncompetitive (mixed) type nature of SSTI and low inhibitor constant (Ki) values (16.6 × 10-8 M) suggested strong inhibitory activity. Isothermal titration calorimetric analysis revealed its high affinity towards trypsin with dissociation constant (Kd) 2.28 µM.

Extensive structural variation in the Bowman-Birk inhibitor family in common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

BACKGROUND: Bowman-Birk inhibitors (BBI) are a family of serine-type protease inhibitors that modulate endogenous plant proteolytic activities during different phases of development. They also inhibit exogenous proteases as a component of plant defense mechanisms, and their overexpression can confer resistance to phytophagous herbivores and multiple fungal and bacterial pathogens. Dicot BBIs are multifunctional, with a "double-headed" structure containing two separate inhibitory loops that can bind and inhibit trypsin and chymotrypsin proteases simultaneously. By contrast, monocot BBIs have a non-functional chymotrypsin inhibitory loop, although they have undergone internal duplication events giving rise to proteins with multiple BBI domains. RESULTS: We used a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) profile-based search to identify 57 BBI genes in the common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genome. The BBI genes are unevenly distributed, with large gene clusters in the telomeric regions of homoeologous group 1 and 3 chromosomes that likely arose through a series of tandem gene duplication events. The genomes of wheat progenitors also contain contiguous clusters of BBI genes, suggesting this family underwent expansion before the domestication of common wheat. However, the BBI gene family varied in size among different cultivars, showing this family remains dynamic. Because of these expansions, the BBI gene family is larger in wheat than other monocots such as maize, rice and Brachypodium. We found BBI proteins in common wheat with intragenic homologous duplications of cysteine-rich functional domains, including one protein with four functional BBI domains. This diversification may expand the spectrum of target substrates. Expression profiling suggests that some wheat BBI proteins may be involved in regulating endogenous proteases during grain development, while others were induced in response to biotic and abiotic stresses, suggesting a role in plant defense. CONCLUSIONS: Genome-wide characterization reveals that the BBI gene family in wheat is subject to a high rate of homologous tandem duplication and deletion events, giving rise to a diverse set of encoded proteins. This information will facilitate the functional characterization of individual wheat BBI genes to determine their role in wheat development and stress responses, and their potential application in breeding.

Targeted inactivation of soybean proteinase inhibitors using zinc.

In this study the potential targeted use of zinc to inactivate proteinase inhibitors (PI) has been investigated as an alternative to the widely applied heat treatment used industrially for inactivation of PI. Zinc was utilized for the reduction of disulfide bonds leading to the structural changes in proteins, thus affecting the decreased affinity between PI and proteinases. The protein disulfide bond reduction mechanism was studied using a newly developed micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) with the glutathione redox reaction with dithiothreitol (DTT) as model system. This model proved efficient in monitoring the reduction of disulfide bonds in the Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (KTI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI). The use of zinc as a reductant resulted in a significant reduction of trypsin inhibitor activity (TIA) of 72% for KTI and 85% for BBI, highlighting zinc as a promising potential agent to reduce the activity of PI as an alternative to heat treatment.

Trypsin inhibitor content and activity of soaking water whey as waste in soy milk processing.

Soybean soaking water whey (SWW) is obtained as the waste of soy milk production and mostly represents an environmental problem. The aim of this study was to assess the content of proteins and content and activity of trypsin inhibitors of fresh SWW, obtained during soy milk production. Two zones of Bowman-Birk trypsin inhibitors (BBI) were detected. One was identified as a monomeric form of BBI (0.61-2.93%) and the other one was identified as a polymeric form of BBI (0.45-3.33%). The degree of BBI extraction (1.88-5.49%) was influenced by the soybean genotype and the grain size, i.e. it increased with increasing grain size. Kunitz trypsin inhibitor was not detected. Total proteins were found in traces in SWW (0.03-0.06%). Low residual trypsin inhibitor activity (0.32-0.55%) suggested that SWW can potentially be applied for preparing food or feed. In that case it will not be waste but a cheap functional supplement with BBI as a biologically active component.

Overexpression of ATP sulfurylase improves the sulfur amino acid content, enhances the accumulation of Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor and suppresses the accumulation of the ß-subunit of ß-conglycinin in soybean seeds.

ATP sulfurylase, an enzyme which catalyzes the conversion of sulfate to adenosine 5'-phosphosulfate (APS), plays a significant role in controlling sulfur metabolism in plants. In this study, we have expressed soybean plastid ATP sulfurylase isoform 1 in transgenic soybean without its transit peptide under the control of the 35S CaMV promoter. Subcellular fractionation and immunoblot analysis revealed that ATP sulfurylase isoform 1 was predominantly expressed in the cell cytoplasm. Compared with that of untransformed plants, the ATP sulfurylase activity was about 2.5-fold higher in developing seeds. High-resolution 2-D gel electrophoresis and immunoblot analyses revealed that transgenic soybean seeds overexpressing ATP sulfurylase accumulated very low levels of the ß-subunit of ß-conglycinin. In contrast, the accumulation of the cysteine-rich Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor was several fold higher in transgenic soybean plants when compared to the non-transgenic wild-type seeds. The overall protein content of the transgenic seeds was lowered by about 3% when compared to the wild-type seeds. Metabolite profiling by LC-MS and GC-MS quantified 124 seed metabolites out of which 84 were present in higher amounts and 40 were present in lower amounts in ATP sulfurylase overexpressing seeds compared to the wild-type seeds. Sulfate, cysteine, and some sulfur-containing secondary metabolites accumulated in higher amounts in ATP sulfurylase transgenic seeds. Additionally, ATP sulfurylase overexpressing seeds contained significantly higher amounts of phospholipids, lysophospholipids, diacylglycerols, sterols, and sulfolipids. Importantly, over expression of ATP sulfurylase resulted in 37-52% and 15-19% increases in the protein-bound cysteine and methionine content of transgenic seeds, respectively. Our results demonstrate that manipulating the expression levels of key sulfur assimilatory enzymes could be exploited to improve the nutritive value of soybean seeds.

Blood pressure-lowering effects of a Bowman-Birk inhibitor and its derived peptides in normotensive and hypertensive rats.

Bioactive plant peptides have received considerable interest as potential antihypertensive agents with potentially fewer side effects than antihypertensive drugs. Here, the blood pressure-lowering effects of the Bowman-Birk protease inhibitor, BTCI, and its derived peptides, PepChy and PepTry, were investigated using normotensive (Wistar-WR) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). BTCI inhibited the proteases trypsin and chymotrypsin, respectively, at 6 µM and 40 µM, a 10-fold greater inhibition than observed with PepTry (60 µM) and PepChy (400 µM). These molecules also inhibited angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) with IC50 values of 54.6 ± 2.9; 24.7 ± 1.1; and 24.4 ± 1.1 µM, respectively, occluding its catalytic site, as indicated by molecular docking simulation, mainly for PepChy and PepTry. Gavage administration of BTCI and the peptides promoted a decrease of systolic and diastolic blood pressure and an increase of renal and aortic vascular conductance. These effects were more expressive in SHR than in WR. Additionally, BTCI, PepChy and PepTry promoted coronary vasodilation and negative inotropic effects in isolated perfused hearts. The nitric oxide synthase inhibitor blunted the BTCI and PepChy, with no cardiac effects on PepTry. The findings of this study indicate a therapeutic potential of BTCI and its related peptides in the treatment of hypertension.