Bioactive peptides (BPs) are 3–20 amino acid residues, with a molecular weight lower than 6 kDa; originated from the breakdown of proteins by endogenous and exogenous peptidases. While intact in protein these peptides do not exert any biological activity, but as they release from their parent protein, they exert various pharmacological activities such as antidiabetic, antihypertensive, anticancerous, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and immunomodulatory. Such peptides exist in all living organism like plants, animals, marine organism and also present in food products derived from them. BPs obtained from dairy food products, cereals, vegetables have been gaining much more importance now-a-days, but little work has been done on bioactive peptides obtained from medicinal plants. Some of the medicinal plants such as Tinospora cordifolia Sterculia foetida, Benincasa hispida, Parkia speciosa, Linum usitatissimum, Salvia hispanica and Ziziphus jujube have been explored for bioactive peptides. Current review is aimed to provide a complete information of medicinal plants derived BPs along with the surge of new materials, new plants which will provide more solutions for handling some of the major human health problems of twenty-first century. This review will also be helpful to researchers in providing valuable information about the extraction, separation, characterization of BPs, their known peptide sequences and various pharmacological activities exerted by medicinal plants-derived bioactive peptides.

生物活性肽 (BPs) 是 3-20 个氨基酸残基，分子量低于 6 kDa；起源于内源性和外源性肽酶对蛋白质的分解。虽然这些肽在蛋白质中是完整的，但不发挥任何生物活性，但当它们从母体蛋白质中释放出来时，它们会发挥各种药理活性，例如抗糖尿病、抗高血压、抗癌、抗炎、抗微生物、抗氧化和免疫调节。此类肽存在于所有生物体中，如植物、动物、海洋生物，也存在于衍生自它们的食品中。如今，从乳制品、谷物、蔬菜中获得的 BP 变得越来越重要，但从药用植物中获得的生物活性肽的研究却很少。一些药用植物已经探索了如Tinospora cordifolia Sterculia foetida、Benincasa hispida、Parkia speciosa 、 Linum usitatissimum、Salvia hispanica和Ziziphus jujube 的生物活性肽。目前的综述旨在提供药用植物衍生的 BPs 的完整信息，以及新材料、新植物的涌现，这将为处理 21 世纪的一些主要人类健康问题提供更多解决方案。本综述还将有助于研究人员提供有关 BPs 的提取、分离、表征、其已知肽序列以及药用植物衍生的生物活性肽所发挥的各种药理活性的有价值信息。