Cereal Chem 53:711 - 717.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Comparison of Bran and Endosperm Pentosans in Immature and Mature Wheat.

B. L. D'Appolonia and L. A. MacArthur. Copyright 1976 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Pentosans extracted from the bran and endosperm of two varieties of immature and mature hard red spring and durum wheat were examined. Crude pentosan-containing material was extracted from the various brans with 0.5N sodium hydroxide. The amount of crude or amylase-treated pentosan-containing material recovered from the bran of immature wheat samples was higher in all cases than that recovered from the bran of corresponding mature wheat samples. However, the protein content of the pentosan-containing material extracted from mature wheat bran was higher than that extracted from immature wheat bran. A slightly higher amount of crude and amylase-treated pentosans was recovered from the flour or semolina of immature wheat samples than from corresponding mature samples. The ratio of arabinose:xylose for the essentially pure bran pentosan fraction (F1) obtained by DEAE-cellulose column chromatography was similar for the immature and mature wheat samples, whereas the ratio for the same fraction for the flour or semolina pentosans was higher for the immature wheat samples than for the mature samples. Considering the data obtained from the essentially pure arabinoxylan fractions, the bran pentosans obtained at a particular level of wheat maturity when compared to the corresponding endosperm pentosans revealed a higher degree of branching.