The Anti-fatigue Activity of Corn Peptides and Their Effect on Gut Bacteria.

Background Corn peptides(CPs) are rich in branched chain amino acids such as leucine and have a variety of biological activities such as antioxidants and improved lipid distribution. In this article, we prepared CPs by enzymatic digestion of corn proteins and evaluated their anti-fatigue activity. Results We evaluated the anti-fatigue effect of CPs through an exhaustive swimming experiment. The results showed that CPs were able to significantly reduce the rate of body weight gain and prolong the duration of exhaustive swimming. Besides, CPs reduced blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels after exercise, while it significantly increased muscle glycogen and liver glycogen stores. It reduced muscle cell damage from exercise. In addition, CPs were effective in increasing AMPK, PGC-1α and PI3K protein expression levels and promoting Akt phosphorylation. Correlation analysis showed that CPs increased the abundance of probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Akkermansia in the gut microflora. Comclusion CPs, which enhanced exercise performance in mice and could modulate gut microbial composition, had significant anti-fatigue activity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.