Changes in molecular structure of chickpea starch during processing treatments: A thin layer chromatography study

Area of Science:

• Food Science
• Biochemistry
• Analytical Chemistry

Background:

• Chickpea starch undergoes structural changes during processing.
• Understanding these changes is crucial for food applications and nutritional properties.
• Existing methods for starch characterization may not fully capture molecular structural details.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a thin-layer chromatographic method for characterizing chickpea starch molecular structure.
• To analyze the components of chickpea starch, including amylopectin, small linear molecules, and large linear molecules.
• To investigate the properties of these components in enzyme-resistant starch.

Main Methods:

• Development of a thin-layer chromatographic (TLC) method.
• Separation and quantification of chickpea starch components.
• Analysis of enzyme-resistant starch components using TLC.
• Assessment of susceptibility to α-amylase hydrolysis.

Main Results:

• The TLC method successfully divided chickpea starch into amylopectin, small linear molecules (degree of polymerization < 15), and large linear molecules (degree of polymerization ~40).
• Small linear molecules in enzyme-resistant starch were found to be more susceptible to α-amylase hydrolysis than large linear molecules.
• The study quantified the content of these molecular components.

Conclusions:

• The developed TLC method provides a robust way to characterize chickpea starch molecular structure.
• Large and small linear molecules in enzyme-resistant chickpea starch likely originate from native starch's amylose and amylopectin, respectively.
• Differential susceptibility to enzymatic hydrolysis highlights distinct roles of these molecular fractions.