[Enzymatic hydrolysates of food proteins for specialized foods for therapeutic and prophylactic nutrition].

The review considers some issues of obtaining, as well as physic-chemical, organoleptic, immunochemical (residual antigenicity) characteristics of enzymatic hydrolysates from food proteins (EHFP) that are widely used in food products for various purposes, as well as assessing their biological activity. The results of experimental works and patents, which describe the most widely used approaches to the production of EHFP with desired properties (hydrolysates for therapeutic and prophylactic products), as well as assessments of biological activity and immunochemical properties are given. The use of various enzyme preparations (of bacterial, fungal and animal origin), as well as one- and two-stage hydrolysis schemes and options for instrumentation of fermentolysis processes are considered. It is concluded that in order to achieve the required reduction in antigenicity for hydrolysates used as part of therapeutic (hypoallergenic) foods (to values not higher than 10-5 relative to the antigenicity of the original protein) membrane ultrafiltration stages are necessary. The main disadvantage of such hydrolysates is their unsatisfactory organoleptic properties (bitterness and high osmolarity) that can be improved using a number of additional technological approaches. The use of partial hydrolysates (or hydrolysates with an average degree of hydrolysis, with a residual antigenicity of 10-4 to 10-5) with significantly better organoleptic properties compared with deep hydrolysates in therapeutic foods is considered. Of considerable interest are the issues of immunomodulatory, antioxidant and hypoallergenic properties of EHFP. It has been suggested that soybean and chicken egg hydrolysates may be promising as functional ingredients with antimicrobial, antihypertensive and immunomodulatory effects in various specialized foods, as well as in cases of food intolerance only to cow milk proteins.