Bioactive peptides are short chains of amino acids that can trigger various cellular processes with signal interactions. It is also easier to deliver and access intracellular materials. Bioactive peptide has already been used as a cosmetic material be...
Bioactive peptides are short chains of amino acids that can trigger various cellular processes with signal interactions. It is also easier to deliver and access intracellular materials. Bioactive peptide has already been used as a cosmetic material because it has the effects as anti-skin aging, whitening, and moisturizing. However, most of them are synthetic peptides, and they have threshold about price and production. Poultry feather consists of about 90% keratin and can be superb source of natural peptides. In previous study, trough anaerobic cultivations of chicken feather with Fervidobacterium islandicumAW-1 and fractionation by membrane ultrafiltration, the functional keratin peptides were produced and separated out some fractions with different amino acid sequence. And we have discovered that KP7, one of the keratin peptide fraction, has had the greatest impact on skin aging. In this study, we investigated anti-skin aging effect of KP7 and its molecular mechanism. Consequently, KP7 has an anti-skin aging efficacy by helping collagen synthesis and inhibiting the expression and production of matrix metalloprotein (MMP)-1, fibroblast collagenase. Furthermore, result of phospho-kinase antibody array demonstrated that KP7 suppressed the mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) pathway, a significant cascade for MMP-1 expression. Overall, these results provide that KP7 is a potential candidate as cosmeceutical peptides with anti-skin aging.