## 3 Results and Discussion
### Potentially Bioactive Peptides  
In previous studies, meat hydrolysates showed several biological activities that can be attributed to the presence of bioactive peptide sequences encrypted in meat proteins and released first during processing and then during digestion by gastrointestinal proteases [27; 36; 37]. The antioxidant and antihypertensive or antidiabetic activity of the peptides were analyzed based on the same LAB strains used in the study. Based on the results of those studies, their results were compared and only the test variants that showed the most favorable biological activity during the 360-day processing period are presented in Table 2.  
Figure 2: Projection of variables (time, LAB strain) on the factor plane (PC-I \(\times\) PC-II) for salt-soluble fraction based on the peptides from dry-cured pork loin. Literature data indicate that pork loin peptides showed biological activities, i.e., the ability to inhibit ACE and DPP-IV, and an antioxidant effect in in vitro tests (as summarized in Table 2). As the authors of other studies have indicated, among all variants in all analysis periods, the same as in this study, the highest DPP-IV inhibiting activity and the highest ACE-inhibiting activity at the level of 81.05% and 67.07% (WSF), respectively, were recorded for BB12 (although for BB12 and C, \(p>0.05\)) after 180 days [27, 37]. Similarly, after 180 days, the strongest anti-radical effect was recorded at the level of 88.96% in WSF for the BAUER batches [36]. Taking into account SSF, the strongest DPP-IV inhibitory protein (BB12 and LOCK at the level of 75.45% and 78.10%, \(p>0.05\)) and the strongest anti-radical effect (BB12 and C at 89.58% and 90.48%, \(p>0.05\)) were recorded after 180 days. In turn, the ability to inhibit ACE (BB12 with an inhibitory effect of 71.19%) was the strongest after 270 days. In terms of the strain type, BB12 and BAUER variants were the most promising, because the samples of meat products inoculated with BAUER were characterized by the strongest antiradical (against ABTS) effect [36], while the BB12 variant showed the strongest DPP-IV-inhibitory effect and ACE-inhibitory effect [27, 37], reflecting its antidiabetic and antihypertensive potential. [PERSON] [33] also observed the highest antioxidant activity in peptides isolated from 9-month-old (270-day-old) loins with BB12, which showed the most effective ABTS cationic radical scavenging effect. As shown in Figure 1, BB12 and BAUER were on opposite positions on the chart during 180 and 270 days for WSF but not SSF. This demonstrates the large variations in water-soluble peptide sequences between these variants. Therefore, peptides present in the hydrolyses isolated from BB12 and BAUER variants (after 180 and 270 days) were taken into account for further analysis. The graphical presentation of the results suggested that during this time period, the sequences from SSF were more similar than those from WSF, so WSF was considered in the further stages of the study. First, the sequences shared with the control sample and then with LOCK were removed from the analysis, in order to determine the actual influence of these two strains on the generation of bioactive sequences. A total of 401 peptide sequences were obtained after 180 days, of which only 22 were common to both research variants. On the other hand, in the second research period (270 days), the sequence similarity was found to be much higher, with 140 fragments out of 460 identified peptide sequences common to BB12 and BAUER. The distribution of the identified peptides in terms of their protein origin is shown in Figures 3 and 4. A different number of protein fragments was identified in the tested variants, indicating no specific influence of the type of strain (BB12 vs. BAUER), but an influence of aging time on the peptide profile in the hydrolyses.