Hafiludin Hafiludin, Novi Indriyawati, Kartika Dewi, Mojiono Mojiono, Muhammad Fitri Ato’illah
Shell-less sea slugs were reported to have a considerable quantity of taurine and bioactive peptides, which showed potential uses as anti-inflammatory agents. This current work aimed to investigate the anti-inflammatory activity of peptides from taurine crude extracts isolated from sea slug, with regard to their capability in retarding expression of cytokine TNF-α in BALBc mice lymphocytes. Taurine in sea slug (whole, muscle, viscera and mucus) was quantified using HPLC, while antioxidant activity of each extract was evaluated using DPPH assay, expressed as IC50 value. The peptides collected from the extracts were identified using LC-HRMS, augmented with bioinformatics analysis to observe their prospective uses as medicine (drug-likeness) and bioactivity agents. We also employed SDS-PAGE electrophoresis for profiling protein in the crude extract, while anti-inflammatory activity of the taurine crude extract was evaluated in lymphocyte cells of BALBc mice induced with LPS. As the results, taurine in sea slug Paromoionchis tumidus was found at range of 155.58-229.87 µg/mL, with IC50 values ranging from 27.10 to 140.20 µg/mL. Although the research found that approximately 82 compounds were detected in taurine crude extract from mucus, peptide still became the predominant fraction, reaching up to 6.09% (3 peptides and 2 amino acids, i.e. DL-β-leucine, N-acetyl-L-leucine, L-glutamic acid, Leucylproline and L-phenylalanine). SDS-PAGE experiment revealed a molecular weight ranging from 31.1 to 117.6 kDa with the highest intensity found at 31 and 38 kDa. Bioinformatics analysis showed that the peptides could be possible agents in anti-inflammatory treatment since they enabled to inhibit expression of TNF-α; and peptide N-acetyl-L-leucine was reported as the best with score of probality to be active 0.737. The release of cytokine TNF- by CD4 T-cell could be best suppressed by the taurine crude extract at concentration of 50 µg/mL with the inhibition reaching up to 0.26%. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
Department of Fisheries and Marine Science, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Trunojoyo Madura, Jl. Raya Telang, Kamal, East Java, Bangkalan, 69162, Indonesia; Department of Food Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Trunojoyo Madura, Jl. Raya Telang, Kamal, East Java, Bangkalan, 69162, Indonesia; Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Brawijaya University, East Java, Malang, 65145, Indonesia
