Bioactive peptides from food science to pharmaceutical industries: Their mechanism of action, potential role in cancer treatment and available resources.

Cancer is known as the main cause of mortality in the world, and every year, the rate of incidence and death due to cancer is increasing. Bioactive peptides are one of the novel therapeutic options that are considered a suitable alternative to toxic chemotherapy drugs because they limit side effects with their specific function. In fact, bioactive peptides are short amino acid sequences that obtain diverse physiological functions to maintain human health after being released from parent proteins. This group of biological molecules that can be isolated from different types of natural protein sources has attracted much attention in the field of pharmaceutical and functional foods production. The current article describes the therapeutic benefits of bioactive peptides and specifically and extensively reviews their role in cancer treatment, available sources for discovering anticancer peptides, mechanisms of action, production methods, and existing challenges.