Separation and Purification of Soluble Polymers and Cell Wall Fractions from Wheat, Rye and Hull less Barley Endosperm Flours for Structure-Nutrition Studies

The nutritional values associated with the cell walls of cereal endosperm flours are due to a combination of solubilized arabinoxylan and (1-3,1-4)-β-d-glucan as well as residual nonsolubilized cell wall material. In order to investigate structure-nutrition relationships, an appropriate method for the complete functional and structural characterization of cell wall polysaccharides in various cereal endosperm flours is described. This involves the separation of soluble polymers and the residual cell wall fraction without using organic solvents, and the fractionation of soluble polymers into arabinoxylan- and (1-3,1-4)-β-d-glucan-rich fractions for subsequent analysis. This methodology is applied to endosperm flours from wheat, hull-less barley and rye, and could be extended to include studies on the effects of food processing with respect to yield and characteristics of the three fractions in order to better understand the structural basis for nutritional functionality.