Abstract
Adequate nutrition is essential for good health. The characterization of the
molecules present in grains - used in the human diet for thousands of years - and their
hydrolysates are currently a growing trend, due to their potential benefits on health, low
cost and minimal adverse effects. Grains contain many bioactive compounds, such as
carbohydrates, lipids and proteins; the latter can be cleaved by chemical hydrolysis or
enzymatic processes and generate smaller fragments named peptides. The continuous
attack of pathogenic microorganisms and viruses on humans makes necessary a
continuous search for new antimicrobial and antiviral molecules; in this respect, several
studies have found antimicrobial and antiviral properties in some peptides, with some
of these deriving from underutilized grains. In respect to this, an exhaustive
bibliographic search of these findings was performed by the use of the online search
engines NCBI, Google Scholar and Google. Therefore, this chapter aims to describe the
state-of-the-art scientific findings about the effects of peptides proceeding from
underutilized grains against microorganisms, particularly focusing on the antiviral
potential effects.