Jellyfish proteins as bioactive compounds in novel foods

The edible jellyfish world fishery, mostly based in Southeast Asia, generates a global catch annually exceeding 750,000 tons, with increasing demands expanding outside Asian markets. Known for its nutritional and medical value in the Chinese pharmacopeia, jellyfish seem to have characteristics of healthy food. Some Mediterranean jellyfish species (phylum Cnidaria) can represent a low-cost raw material for innovative medical, nutraceutical or cosmeceutical products. Jellyfish are rich in protein, mainly collagen, and are recently designated as novel foods in Europe. Several compounds isolated from jellyfish, including proteins, can exert high antioxidant and other biological activities. GoJelly is a new H2020 funded project addressing the potential exploitation of jellyfish biomass and derived compounds for multiple purposes. Here we report on the protein characterization of Rhizostoma pulmo, an edible scyphozoan jellyfish regularly found with large populations along Italian sandy coastlines. We show that hydrolysed proteins, including hydrolysed jellyfish collagen, have strong antioxidant activity, particularly low molecular weight fractions (less than 10 kDa). Moreover, the cytotoxicity of different fractions of jellyfish hydrolysed protein on cancer cells (MCF7) and human keratinocytes (HEKa) was investigated, as well as their protective effect on UV-irradiated HEKa. In combination with food safety assessments and improvements in jellyfish processing technology, scientific evidence demonstrating edible jellyfish as functional food may promote the future expansion of jellyfish fishery worldwide.