Macrotyloma uniflorum: a comprehensive review on its nutritional profile and emerging therapeutic potential driven by bioactive peptides—generation methods and pharmacological significance

Macrotyloma uniflorum (horse gram) is a drought tolerant legume of considerable nutritional and pharmacological value that remains underexploited relative to major pulses such as chickpea, lentil, and soybean. The seeds provide 15–22% protein along with substantial carbohydrate, dietary fibre, and micronutrient content, together with phenolics, flavonoids, tannins, and saponins that contribute to its broad pharmacological profile, including antidiabetic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiobesity, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, hepatoprotective, and antiurolithiatic activities. However, its dietary utilization is constrained by antinutritional factors such as phytic acid, tannins, trypsin inhibitors, and oligosaccharides that limit digestibility and mineral bioavailability, though processing methods such as soaking, germination, roasting, and fermentation can substantially reduce these compounds while enhancing phytochemical and antioxidant potential. Beyond its nutritional and phytochemical attributes, M. uniflorum proteins serve as precursors for bioactive peptides generated primarily through enzymatic hydrolysis, with additional contributions from chemical hydrolysis and microbial fermentation. Peptides such as TVGMTAKF and QLLLQQ, identified following Alcalase hydrolysis, retain antihypertensive activity after simulated gastrointestinal digestion. Fractionation via ultrafiltration, ion exchange chromatography, and gel filtration, combined with identification through MALDI-TOF and LC–MS/MS, has enabled characterization of peptides with antioxidant and ACE inhibitory properties, while in silico platforms such as BIOPEP-UWM and PeptideRanker offer complementary prediction tools that remain largely unapplied to this species. This review synthesizes the nutritional composition, pharmacological activities, antinutritional constraints, and processing strategies of M. uniflorum , with particular focus on the generation, fractionation, identification, and bioactivity of its protein derived peptides. Persistent gaps limited in vivo and clinical validation, scarce bioavailability and pharmacokinetic data, methodological inconsistency across studies, and minimal application of proteomic and computational prediction tools constrain translation of these findings into functional foods and nutraceuticals. Addressing these gaps through standardized processing, advanced peptidomic characterization, and clinical evaluation is essential to establishing M. uniflorum as a viable source of multifunctional bioactive peptides.