Polysaccharides from tamarind seed

Tamarind flour is used as food thickeners, stabilizers, and gelling agents. Polysaccharides from tamarind seeds can be used to replace pectin in the manufacture of jellies and jams, can be used in fruit preserving with or without acids, and can be used as a stabilizer in ice cream, mayonnaise, and cheese. 

Ghelardi, E., et al. 2000. Effect of a novel mucoadhesive polysaccharide obtained from tamarind seeds on the intraocular penetration of gentamycin and ofloxacin in rabbits. J Antimicrob Che-mother 46 831. 

Many other polysaccharides have been investigated as gums, but have not reached the status of commercial viability. Among these are polysaccharides from chia seeds [93], corn hull (corn fiber), flaxseed [93], okra [93], and tamarind seeds [93] (used in India). 

Xyloglucan (XG), a water-soluble food grade polysaccharide extracted from tamarind seed mucilage, has been reported as a substrate for the graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) [37]. Polymerization was initiated with XG both conventionally by ceric ions in an aqueous medium under atmosphere and also under microwave irradiation. In the microwave initiated grafting reaction where no initiator was used, 92.5%G was achieved using 0.5 M acrylonitrile, XG (1 g/200 ml (H O)), temperature 60°C and microwave power 150 W in 120 s. Conventionally, xmder same monomer and polysaccharide concentration, 76%G was achieved in 24 h using ceric ammonium nitrate (0.001 M) as initiator at 40°C. 

Tamarind seed polysaccharide, the gum fraction obtained from tamarind kernel polysaccharide, forms gels over a wide pH range in the presence of high sugar concentrations (>65 wt%), and it can therefore substitute for fmit pectins (65). 

The rheological behavior of storage XGs was characterized by steady and dynamic shear rheometry [104,266]. Tamarind seed XG [266] showed a marked dependence of zero-shear viscosity on concentration in the semi-dilute region, which was similar to that of other stiff neutral polysaccharides, and ascribed to hyper-entanglements. In a later paper [292], the flow properties of XGs from different plant species, namely, suspension-cultured tobacco cells, apple pomace, and tamarind seed, were compared. The three XGs differed in composition and structural features (as mentioned in the former section) and... 

A gel-forming polysaccharide may be isolated from the thickened cell-walls of the cotyledons of the seeds of tamarind (Tamarindus... 

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