Structural, rheological and nutraceutical potential of β-glucan from barley and oat

•β- glucan exhibited shear thinning behavior as revealed from Herschel-Bulkely model and frequency sweep.•β- glucan solution showed stability in the wide pH range.•β-glucan exhibited dose dependent antioxidant and antiproliferative activity.

β-glucan in oat and barley were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, size-exclusion chromatography and purity estimation by Megazyme β-glucan assay kit. Oat and barley β-glucan had average molecular weights of 2.0×103 kDa and 1.79×103 kDa, respectively. Rheological analysis suggested that β-glucan consisted of interchain aggregations and showed shear thinning behavior as revealed from Herschel-Bulkely model and frequency sweep. Antioxidant activity was evaluated by three complementary assays. Oat β- glucan showed increased DPPH scavenging activity, reducing power, and protection against DNA damage than barley β-glucan. Further, the antiproliferative potential of β-glucan was tested against three human cancer cell lines using MTT assay (3- (4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)−2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide). β-glucan exhibited dose dependent cancer cell growth inhibition with oat β-glucan being more potent than barley β-glucan. This study demonstrates that barley and oat beta glucans hold nutraceutical potential of importance for functional food development and human health in general.

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