Molecular characteristics of new wheat starch and its digestion behaviours

In order to understand the effect of starch molecular characteristics on the gel structure, which subsequently influence the gel digestion behaviours, three wheat starches, control (conventional wheat starch), two new wheat cultivars with different genetic backgrounds (by knocking out SBE IIb and SBE IIa, respectively) were used in this study. In comparison with control, slight differences in the morphology of the starch granules of new wheat 1 were observed, whereas the starch granules of new wheat 2 had irregular shapes both for A-type granules and B-type granules. Starch molecular weight size was determined by SE-HPLC, and the results indicate that there was a subtle increase in the amylose content in the starch of new wheat 1 compared to that of control. The starch of new wheat 2 had the highest amylose content, and the molecular weight (MW) of its amylopectin was the lowest among the three starches. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was employed to investigate starch gel structure and the results suggest that the molecules of starch gel from new wheat 2 are more likely to re-associate to form an organized conformation. The digestion behaviours of the three starch gels were measured using a mixture of pancreatin α-amylase and amyloglucosidase. The results indicated that the starch gels of control and new wheat 1 had very high digestibility of 91.7 and 91.9%, respectively, whereas the digestibility of wheat 2 starch gel was only 36.2%. In comparison with the digestion curve patterns of control and new wheat 1 starch gels, the new wheat 2 exhibited a much lower initial velocity. These results indicated that the molecules in the starch of new wheat 2 are more readily to re-associate to form an organized structure during gel formation because of its unique molecular characteristics.