Twelve kinds of marine protein materials, including fish, shrimp, seashell, algae and seafood wastes were selected for the hydrolysis using four different proteases. The IC50 values for angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory activity of 48 hydrolysates were rapidly determined by capillary electrophoresis (CE). The values ranged from 0.17 to 501.7 mg/ml, and were affected by both the marine protein resources and the selected proteases. Hydrolysates of the lowest IC50 values were from shrimp (Acetes chinensis), shark meat, mackerel bone, Polysiphonia urceolata and Spirulina platensis, indicating these five kinds of marine food proteins contained beneficial materials for the production of ACE inhibitory peptides by proteolysis. The hydrolysates obtained using proteases Protamex and SM98011 had lower IC50 values, showing these two proteases were superior to others. The CE method achieved the same sensitivity as the high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method. However, the CE method was faster and, as a result, more economical. Therefore, CE had potential for rapid screening of marine protein hydrolysates enriched in ACE inhibitory peptides. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.