Evaluation of the impact of a rat small intestinal extract on the digestion of four different functional fibers

• Published in: Food & function 2020-05, Vol.11 (5), p.481-489
• Main Authors: Gallego-Lobillo, Pablo, Ferreira-Lazarte, Alvaro, Hernández-Hernández, Oswaldo, Montilla, Antonia, Villamiel, Mar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Carbohydrate Metabolism; Carbohydrates; Carbohydrates - chemistry; Digestion; Disaccharides; Enzymes - metabolism; Fibers; Fructans; Fructooligosaccharides; Fructose; Intestine; Intestine, Small - chemistry; Inulin; Melibiose; Molecular weight; Peas; Polysaccharides - chemistry; Prebiotics; Rats; Tissue Extracts - chemistry; Tissue Extracts - metabolism; Tissue Extracts - pharmacology
• ISSN: 2042-6496; 2042-650X
• DOI: 10.1039/d0fo00236d

The degree of digestion, modulated by rat small intestinal extract on different functional fibers was investigated. In general, inulin-type fructans and fructooligosaccharides were the most resistant to the enzymatic digestion. Results evidenced the high-resistance of fructosyl-fructose bonds. This fits well with the concept of prebiotic carbohydrates. However, the mixture of melibiose, manninotriose and verbascotetraose (α-GOS) from peas, with a considerably lower molecular weight (0.6 kDa) than the fructans studied, were highly digested (61.2%). Interestingly, the Gal-(1 → 6)-Gal bonds present into the manninotriose and verbascotetraose were more prone to be hydrolyzed than Gal-(1 → 6)-Glc (melibiose). However, when melibiose was the only disaccharide present in the reaction mixture, the hydrolysis was also high (67.7%). The use of small intestinal enzymatic preparations is a realistic approximation to evaluate the digestion of different carbohydrates, thus, showing that recognized non-digestible carbohydrates can also be partially digested. The degree of digestion, modulated by rat small intestinal extract on different functional fibers was investigated.