Cereal Chem 59:96 - 100.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Characterization of Pentosans from Different Wheat Flour Classes and of Their Gelling Capacity.

C. F. Ciacco and B. L. D'Appolonia. Copyright 1982 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Water-soluble pentosans were isolated from hard red spring, hard red winter, durum, western white, and soft red winter (SRW) wheat flours. The water-soluble pentosans isolated from the five wheat flours were fractionated by diethylaminoethyl (DEAE)-cellulose chromatography into five fractions. The most abundant polysaccharide was an arabinoxylan isolated as fractions I and II. Durum arabinoxylan had the highest degree of branching, whereas that from SRW had the lowest. Ferulic acid was found to be associated with all five fractions. However, in most cases, fraction II contained the highest amount of ferulic acid. Intrinsic viscosity measurements revealed higher values for the arabinoxylans than for the remaining fractions. The highest intrinsic viscosity values were obtained for the arabinoxylan isolated from western white, whereas that from SRW had the lowest values. Viscosity measurements after addition of an oxidizing agent (H2O2/peroxidase) to the arabinoxylan revealed that fraction II had higher gelling capacity than fraction I. For both fractions, the maximum increase in viscosity was directly related to the intrinsic viscosity value. Some of the arabinoxylans showed a sharp decrease in viscosity after the maximum was reached, indicating that an oxidative degradation of the carbohydrate chain was taking place competitively with the gelling reaction.