Abstract
Six hull-less barley cultivars widely grown in China were roller-milled to produce bran, shorts and flour fractions. The distribution and molecular characteristics of β-glucans from the three roller-milled fractions were investigated. The β-glucan contents in the six hull-less barley cultivars varied from 4.96% to 7.62%. For all the six cultivars, the shorts fraction contained the highest concentration of β-glucan (8.12–13.01%), followed by bran (6.15–7.58%) and flour (2.48–2.95%). Crude β-glucans were prepared from the three roller-milled fractions using aqueous sodium carbonate (pH 10). These preparations contained 45.38–71.41% β-glucan, 10.81–17.26% arabinoxylan, 2.6–9.6% protein, 2.7–9.0% starch, and 5.23–9.68% ash. Purification using α-amylase and β-xylanase in combination with pH adjustment and dialysis produced high purity β-glucan preparations (91–95%). The molecular weight (Mw) of β-glucan preparations from roller-milled fractions ranged from 117,600 to 852,400 g/mol. β-Glucan from flour had higher Mw than those from shorts and bran within the same cultivar, and β-glucan preparations from bran had the lowest Mw.
Highlights
Hull-less barley is the main staple food crop in Tibet, grown in more than 55% of the total cultivated land
4.96% to 7.62%, and is in good agreement with the previous findings in which β-glucan contents were found to range from 2.4% to 8.3% in hull-less barleys [17]
The results showed that hull-less barley—with higher test weight and 1000 kernel weight—contained more β-glucan
Summary
Hull-less barley is the main staple food crop in Tibet, grown in more than 55% of the total cultivated land. All the cultivated varieties grown in Tibet are hull-less barley. Hull-less barley has recently attracted a lot of interests among food scientists and technologists because of its soluble dietary fiber, which may provide considerable health benefits [4,5]. Such physiological benefits have generally been attributed to β-glucan, a group of non-starchy polysaccharides and the primary component of soluble dietary fiber in both barley and oats [4]. The amount of β-glucan in hull-less barley normally varies from 4%
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