Isolation and characterization of cereal cell walls

Abstract

The present study was aimed to isolate and characterize cereal cell walls with special reference to monosaccharide and total phenolic content. For the purpose, two varieties of each cereal, i.e. wheat (Ujala-16 and FSD-08), barley (Jau-87 and Haider-93), and sorghum (Sorghum-11 and JS-02) were procured from Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, Faisalabad. In phase I, endospermic cell walls were isolated from cereals through popping method. In phase II, isolated cell walls were analyzed for monosaccharides, beta-glucan, and total phenolics according to their respective methods. Higher cell wall contents were shown by both varieties of barley (8.32–8.99 g/100 g) followed by wheat (5.21–5.68 g/100 g) and sorghum (3.88–4.02 g/100 g) varieties. Results regarding monosaccharides of endospermic cell walls revealed that these cell walls had arabinose, xylose, mannose, galactose, and glucose with glucose absence in wheat and mannose and galactose absence in sorghum. Furthermore, barley varieties were higher in beta-glucan and total phenolics content followed by wheat and sorghum. Conclusively, barley cell wall was considered more nutritious as compared to wheat and sorghum.

Keywords

• cereals
• cell wall
• monosaccharides
• phenolic
• popping