Cereal Chem 43:373 - 383.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

Disulfide-Sulfhydryl Interchange Studies of Wheat Flour. I. The Improving Action of Formamidine Disulfide.

B. Sullivan and L. K. Dahle. Copyright 1966 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Formamidine disulfide was found to have very good maturing action on flour - probably because of blocking its -SH groups. The compound also provided a useful tool for measuring the extent of disulfide- sulfhydryl interchange in flour extracts and doughs. Although, theoretically, disulfide-sulfhydryl interchange had seemed a logical explanation for the changes in the rheological properties of flour doughs effected by improvers, results have shown this reaction may not, in fact, take place to any significant degree in the normal pH range of doughs. Evidence of interchange with glutathione was obtained only in alkaline medium.