Recent Advances in Cereal Arabinoxylans: A Review of Extraction, Processing and Structure Relationships with Advanced...

Arabinoxylans (AX) are the main hemicellulose polysaccharides found in cereal bran and endosperm. These polysaccharides have attracted widespread attention owing to their potential as both functional components and structural building materials. Previous reviews typically discussed AX extraction, arabinoxylan oligosaccharides preparation, dietary fiber function, or gelation behavior separately. This review aims to address this limitation by systematically reviewing relevant research from an integrated "structure-processing-function" framework. Specifically, this review compares the effects of different extraction pathways on yield and key structural features, including molecular weight, substitution patterns, and ferulic acid retention. Moreover, the review summarizes the roles of physical, chemical, and enzymatic modifications in regulating solubility, interfacial behavior, and gelling ability. The review further discusses the effects of these structural changes on the application of AXs in food, delivery systems, and some biomaterials. Mild or enhanced assisted extraction is conducive to maintaining structural integrity, whereas high-yield processes are often costly. This often manifest as a decrease in depolymerization and ferulic acid acylation. Correspondingly, oxidative gelation and complex network design have expanded the functional applications of AXs. However, its final performance remains substantially limited by differences in raw material sources, processing conditions, and the balance between covalent and noncovalent interactions. Therefore, AXs should be considered promising but not yet controllable functional polysaccharides. Major bottlenecks in this field include structural heterogeneity from different grain sources, insufficient control of modification results, incomplete understanding of the structure-function relationship, and a lack of sufficient clinical and regulatory support for some potential applications. Only by making substantive progress on these key issues can AXs transform into a stable system of high-value-added food and biological materials.