Elsevier

Food Hydrocolloids

Volume 52, January 2016, Pages 275-288
Food Hydrocolloids

Review
A critical review on production and industrial applications of beta-glucans

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodhyd.2015.07.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Beta-glucan has been increasingly used by the food and other industries.

  • Latest progress on production and application of glucans was summarized.

  • Physicochemical properties and chemical modifications of β-glucan were reported.

  • Potential value-added products derived from β-glucans were also summarized.

  • β-glucans will play an increasing role in future global food and medical sectors.

Abstract

A great interest of β-glucans with many health-promoting and prebiotic properties has been registered. β-Glucans are major bioactive compounds known to have biological activities including anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and immune-modulating properties. Due to the specific physical properties of β-glucan, such as water solubility, viscosity, and gelation, it has been increasingly used by the food and other industries. The aim of this review is to present an overview on the production technologies of β-glucan, such as extraction, isolation, purification technologies from different sources, for instance yeast, fungi, bacteria, and cereal, aiming its optimization for more effective production processes. Furthermore, the physicochemical properties, chemical modifications, possible industrial applications and future prospects of β-glucans in foods, medicines, cosmetics, and other potential value-added products are also summarized. Data indicate that β-glucans will play an increasing role in current and future global food and medical sectors.

Introduction

β-Glucans are polysaccharides of d-glucose monomers linked through β-glycosidic bonds. As a kind of dietary fiber (DF), β-glucan could be found in a variety of natural sources such as yeast, mushrooms, bacteria, algae, barley and oat (Zhu, Du, Bian, & Xu, 2015). β-Glucan exhibits a broad spectrum of biological activities including anti-tumor, immune-modulating (Rieder & Samuelsen, 2012), anti-aging and anti-inflammatory properties. β-Glucans have attracted attention over the years because of their physical and chemical properties. β-Glucan from different sources and with different molecular weights has different biological activities (Du & Xu, 2014). β-Glucan from baker's yeast consists of β-(1 → 3) and (1 → 6) linkages (Fig. 1(a)). However, other β-glucans, derived from cereals, are polysaccharides of glucose residues with β-(1 → 3) and β-(1 → 4) linkages (Fig. 1(b)). And cellulose is a (1 → 4) β-glucan; curdlan is a (1 → 3) β-glucan; β-glucan from lichen may contain either (1 → 3) (1 → 4) or (1 → 3) (1 → 6)-β-glucans. Fungal β-glucan has shown effectiveness as an immune system booster and an anti-tumor substance (Du, Lin, Bian, & Xu, 2015). β-Glucan from cereals help to lower cholesterol and blood glucose (Zhu et al., 2015).

Du et al. (2015) reviewed the anti-inflammatory effects of fungal β-glucans. Du, Bian, and Xu (2014) also discussed skin health promotion effects of natural β-glucan derived from cereals and microorganisms. However, the review on production, physical properties and industrial applications of β-glucan has received little attention. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview based on the published data (including papers and US patents on production, extraction and purification of β-glucan from various sources (Table 1). We also presented the physical properties of β-glucan. Finally, we included the potential applications in foods, cosmetics, pharmaceutical industry and other health products applications of β-glucan.

Section snippets

The production of β-glucans from different sources

The production of fungal β-glucan is accompanied by a remarkable increase in broth viscosity because of both biopolymer accumulation and microbial growth (Garcia-Ochoa, Gomez Castro, & Santos, 2000). A critical point affecting the technical feasibility of fungal β-glucan production is represented by the potential interferences of the β-glucan released during the fermentation (Crognale, Bruno, Fidaleo, Moresi, & Petruccioli, 2007). A range of extraction and purification methods are available for

Chemical modification of β-glucan

β-Glucan is an important bioactive compound for human health, but its low solubility has led to the development of chemical modification technologies to improve bioavailability. Several methods to modify β-glucan are laid out to improve their functional and technological properties via physical and chemical cross-linking reactions (Ahmad, Mustafa, & Che Man, 2015). In this respect, β-glucans can be chemically modified to obtain various derivatives with potential industrial or medicinal

Effects of physical and chemical properties on biological activities of β-glucans

Studies have been conducted to investigate the physical properties of β-glucans. Temelli (1997) investigated the physical properties, such as viscosity, whippability, foam stability and emulsion stabilizing capacity of the barley β-glucan gum to assess potential food applications. The results showed that maximum emulsion stability and viscosity were achieved at pH 7.0 and 55 °C. Viscosity increased with pH at constant temperature. Barley β-glucan gum shows a great potential as a thickener or

Industrial applications of β-glucans

β-Glucan has various physical properties such as thickening, stabilizing, emulsification, and gelation (Ahmad, Anjum, Zahoor, Nawaz, & Dilshad, 2012). β-Glucan has the potential to be used in acceptable health products that offer a wide range of added health benefits. There are some commercially available β-glucans products shown in Table 3. Much of the interest in the use of cereal β-glucans has stemmed from their use as a functional dietary fiber (Barsanti et al., 2011, Du et al., 2014b). β

Conclusions

In general, this review provides the consumer with a higher diversity of glucans; allow farmers an efficient and profitable use of the mushroom biomass. Advancement in the production process and functional properties of β-glucan will greatly enhance our ability to evaluate present and future β-glucan products. Taken together, screening and modification for the most potent and cost-effective β-glucans could then be made efficient. Promising results of clinical experiment in wound healing suggest

Acknowledgments

This research was jointly supported by a research grant (R201402) from Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College, China, National Natural Science Foundation of China (31470542) and Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (C2014407059).

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    These authors contributed equally to this work.

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