Site-selective and stochastic spin labelling of neutral water-soluble dietary fibers optimized for electron...

Use of spin labels to study structures of polymers has been widely spread in polymer science. However, for the studies of neutral water-soluble dietary fibers (DFs), labelling efficiencies in past studies have only been sufficient for application of continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (CW-EPR), but still insufficient for some advanced methods such as pulse EPR. Thus, in this paper, two spin labelling strategies, namely, site-selective mono-spin-labelling and stochastic multi-spin-labelling, were examined on linear cereal β-glucan, as well as linearly branched arabinoxylan and galactomannan. The effects of both methods in DF properties were evaluated. For the mono-labelling pathway, labelling efficiency could reach up to 46 %. In the stochastic labelling strategy, a degree of substitution (DS) up to 150 % could be reached, whereas optimized conditions for this strategy were achieved at DS = 3 % to obtain DFs whose bioactivity properties were still preserved while spin labelling efficiency was still sufficient for CW and pulse EPR experiments.