Mild hydrolysis of resistant starch from maize

To investigate structural changes of resistant starch (RS) caused by mild-acid treatment, native maize starch, retrograded (RS3), and cross-linked (RS4) resistant starches, prepared from maize starch, were hydrolyzed with 0.1 M HCl at 35 °C for 30 days. The hydrolysis rate of RS3 was shown to be the highest, at 44.1% after 30 days of the hydrolysis. The hydrolysis rapidly progressed upto 10 days but gradually changed after that. Native starch and RS4 showed less than 5% of hydrolysis during the period of hydrolysis. As for the RS level of the residue after the hydrolysis, RS4 did not show any significant change, but RS3 exhibited an increase of up to 25.9% after 30 days, which led to 88% increase in comparison with 13.8% at the initial stage. As a result of examining the molecular weight (MW) of RS3 by the SEC-MALLS-RI system, the non-hydrolyzed RS3 exhibited three peaks, having MW 53.4 × 106, 7.4 × 106, and 0.8 × 106, respectively, but the MW of the molecules decreased to 4.9 × 106 and 0.6 × 106 after 7 days of hydrolysis. It was difficult to verify the MW of RS4 because this was not dispersed in 1 M NaOH. The crystallinity of native starches, RS3 and RS4, by X-ray diffractometry of the residue hydrolyzed with 0.1 M HCl was equal to that of the non-hydrolyzed starch. The peak intensity at 2θ = 17° of RS3 increased sharply after hydrolysis.