Progress in the pretreatment and analysis of carbohydrates in food: An update since 2013

Carbohydrates in foods and other matrices plays vital roles in their diverse biological functions. Carbohydrates serve not only as functional substances but also as structural materials, such as components of membranes, and participate in cellular recognition. The fact that carbohydrates are indispensable has contributed to the need for pretreatment and analytical methods to be developed for their characterization. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of carbohydrate pretreatment and determination methods in various matrices. The pretreatment methods include simple and more developed approaches (e.g., solid phase extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, and different microextraction methods, among others). The analytical methods include those by liquid chromatography (including high-performance anion-exchange chromatography), capillary electrophoresis, gas chromatography and supercritical fluid chromatography, and others. Different pretreatment methods and determination approaches are updated, compared, and discussed. Moreover, we discuss and compare the strengths and weaknesses of different methods and suggest their future prospects.