Many polysaccharides are known to form aggregates in aqueous solutions. The effect of chemical structure on aggregation, however, has been taken into consideration in very few studies. Our studies have focused on the investigation of a structurally diverse group of branched polysaccharides with nutritional and industrial functions: cereal arabinoxylans, dextrans from lactic acid bacteria and galactomannan from guar. Arabinoxylans and dextrans from different sources had natural variation in their chemical structure. The structural effects on the solution properties could be studied in detail by modifying pure wheat and rye arabinoxylans and guar galactomannan with specific enzymes. According to SEC and AsFlFFF analyses, all the studied polysaccharides formed aggregates in aqueous solution depending on the structure. The low degree of substitution (DS) caused the aggregation of arabinoxylans and galactomannans as expected, but also the native guar galactomannan with the higher DS of 0.6 was aggregated. Dextrans, containing long-chain branches, showed the increased aggregation tendency at higher molar masses.

Effect of chemical structure on the aggregation of polysaccharides

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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