Structural changes of arabinoxylans in refrigerated dough

Wheat flour mainly consists of the starchy endosperm of the kernel, and contains starch, proteins, lipids and non-starch polysaccharides. Arabinoxylans (AXs) are the main non-starch polysaccharides found in wheat flour. Studies showed that degradation of AXs in refrigerated dough has negative effect on quality. The objectives of this research were to structurally characterize the AXs from refrigerated dough samples and determine any correlations between the AX structural changes and variation in dough quality. We observed that the molecular weight of the AXs was changing during the extended storage, and we detected variation in arabinose to xylose ratio for water extractable and unextractable AXs. The ratio of unsubstituted xylose in water extractable AXs increased during storage. These results showed that changes in AX chemistry is correlated to the refrigerated dough quality.