Fructooligosaccharides and fructans analysis in plants and food crops

• Chromatographic methods of fructans and FOS analysis in plants are reviewed.
• Other modern methods are also described.
• Liquid chromatography-based methods seem to be the most reliable.
• Separation of high polymerized fructan polymers still remains challenging.

Because fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and fructans are increasingly important in food and nutrition sciences, separation and analysis tools, in particular with the development of analytical chemistry, are slowly but rationally being developed for their separation and identification in plants, crops, and food products. Several chromatographic and other methods have been described to assess FOS and fructans, however, most of these methods are technically complicated, time-consuming and expensive. Although modern techniques have evolved tremendously, FOS and fructans analyses involve multiple and/or sequential extractions, chemical or biochemical polymers hydrolysis, and multiple chromatographic and/or other analytical runs to quantify these polymers. This paper aims to review and describe the different chromatographic techniques and other methods that are used to separate, analyze and quantify FOS and fructans