Food Polysaccharides and Their Links to Applications in Improving Food Textures and Eating Quality

A special issue of Foods (ISSN 2304-8158). This special issue belongs to the section "Food Physics and (Bio)Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2022) | Viewed by 5159

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Food Science and Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China
Interests: cereal intensive processing; cereal proteins; polysaccharides; cereal functional nutrition

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Guest Editor
School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China
Interests: edible oil and value-added products; microbial production of functional carbohydrates and glycoconjugates
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Food polysaccharides refer to the no-starch carbohydrates approved for industrial usage in food products with multiple functions. They show remarkable properties, such as non-toxicity, extensive accessibility, and renewability, as well as health-promoting effects. Both the intrinsic molecular characteristics and the extrinsic environmental factors significantly affect the physicochemical properties of polysaccharides, including the hydration, rheological properties, surface activity, and gelation induced by the freeze–thawing method. Food polysaccharides improve the quality, texture, mouthfeel, and flavor of food materials as thickeners, stabilizers, texturizers, and gelling agents. They link to applications in improving the textural attributes of numerous food products, including emulsion-based foods, low calorie foods, restructured foods, gelatin-free foods, breaded or battered foods, frozen foods, as well as wheaten foods.

A full understanding of the structure–property relationship of food polysaccharides and attractive application strategies still need to be further systematically elucidated and developed.

This Special Issue invites papers in the following areas:

  • Structure and functionality of food polysaccharides from plants, microorganisms, and seafoods;
  • Characterization of interaction of polysaccharides with other food components including proteins and lipids;
  • New methods to evaluate the texture and eating quality of food containing polysaccharides;
  • Developing attractive strategies to improve food textures and eating quality by supplementing food polysaccharides.

Prof. Dr. Li Wang
Prof. Dr. Fengjie Cui
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • food polysaccharides
  • structure characteristics
  • functionality
  • emulsion
  • gelation
  • texture
  • eating quality

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1935 KiB  
Article
Dynamic Changes in Cell Wall Polysaccharides during Fruit Development and Ripening of Two Contrasting Loquat Cultivars and Associated Molecular Mechanisms
by Honghong Deng, Xi Wang, Yang Wang, Yinchun Xiang, Mingmin Chen, Huifen Zhang, Xian Luo, Hui Xia, Dong Liang, Xiulan Lv, Jin Wang and Qunxian Deng
Foods 2023, 12(2), 309; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/foods12020309 - 9 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1642
Abstract
Loquats have drawn much attention due to their essential nutrients and unusual phenology, which fills a market gap in early spring. Fruit firmness (FF) is one of the most important quality attributes. Dynamic changes in FF, cell wall (CW) polysaccharides, CW hydrolase activity, [...] Read more.
Loquats have drawn much attention due to their essential nutrients and unusual phenology, which fills a market gap in early spring. Fruit firmness (FF) is one of the most important quality attributes. Dynamic changes in FF, cell wall (CW) polysaccharides, CW hydrolase activity, and expression of CW metabolism-related genes during the fruit development and ripening stages of two contrasting loquat cultivars were compared. Although the two cultivars possessed similar FF at the initial fruitlet stage, Dawuxing was significantly firmer than Ninghaibai at all subsequent time points. FF was positively correlated with the contents of covalent-soluble pectin and hemicellulose, activity of peroxidase, and gene expressions of PME, EG, CAD6, and POD; and negatively correlated with the contents of water-soluble pectin, activities of polygalacturonase, endo-glucanase, cellobiohydrolase, and xylanase, and gene expressions of PG, EG2, PAL1, PAL3, and CAD5. Identifying molecular mechanisms underlying the differences in FF is useful for fundamental research and crop improvement in future. Full article
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15 pages, 3584 KiB  
Article
Variation in Cell Wall Metabolism and Flesh Firmness of Four Apple Cultivars during Fruit Development
by Qiufang Su, Xianglu Li, Lexing Wang, Bochen Wang, Yifeng Feng, Huijuan Yang and Zhengyang Zhao
Foods 2022, 11(21), 3518; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/foods11213518 - 4 Nov 2022
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3014
Abstract
Fruit ripening and softening are highly complex processes, and there is an interplay and coordination between the metabolic pathways that are involved in the biological processes. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the variation in the characters and possible causes of cell [...] Read more.
Fruit ripening and softening are highly complex processes, and there is an interplay and coordination between the metabolic pathways that are involved in the biological processes. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the variation in the characters and possible causes of cell wall materials and morphological structure during apple fruits development. We studied the cell wall material (CWM), structure, cellular morphology, hydrolase activity, and the transcriptional levels of the related genes in four apple varieties ‘Ruixue’ and ‘Ruixianghong’ and their parents (‘Pink Lady’ and ‘Fuji’) during fruit development. The decrease in the contents of CWMs, sodium carbonate soluble pectin, hemicellulose, and cellulose were positively correlated with the decline in the hardness during the fruit development. In general, the activities of polygalacturonase, β-galactosidase, and cellulase enzymes increased during the late developmental period. As the fruit grew, the fruit cells of all of the cultivars gradually became larger, and the cell arrangement became more relaxed, the fruit cell walls became thinner, and the intercellular space became larger. In conclusion, the correlation analysis indicated that the up-regulation of the relative expression levels of ethylene synthesis and cell wall hydrolase genes enhanced the activity of the cell wall hydrolase, resulting in the degradation of the CWMs and the depolymerization of the cell wall structure, which affected the final firmness of the apple cultivars in the mature period. Full article
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