Raffinose production

Further details about modern raffinose production are given by Hung-erford and Nees.76 Bates and associates describe its recrystallization.66... 

Use of some oilseed proteins in foods is limited by flavor, color, and flatus effects. Raw soybeans, for example, taste grassy, beany, and bitter. Even after processing, residues of these flavors may limit the amounts of soybean proteins that can be added to a given food (87). The use of cottonseed and sunflower seed flours is restricted by the color imparted by gossypol and phenoHc acids, respectively. Flatus production by defatted soy flours has been attributed to raffinose and stachyose, which are removed by processing the flours into concentrates and isolates (88). 

Composition. Molasses composition depends on several factors, eg, locality, variety, sod, climate, and processing. Cane molasses is generally at pH 5.5—6.5 and contains 30—40 wt % sucrose and 15—20 wt % reducing sugars. Beet molasses is ca 7.5—8.6 pH, and contains ca 50—60 wt % sucrose, a trace of reducing sugars, and 0.5—2.0 wt % raffinose. Cane molasses contains less ash, less nitrogenous material, but considerably more vitamins than beet molasses. Composition of selected molasses products is Hsted in Table 7. Procedures for molasses analysis are avadable (59). 

The ability of RGase B to solubilise soy fibres is useful for the production of a fibre enriched dietetic soy product. Soy milk has the disadvantages that it has a low fibre content and a high content of phytate and of stachyose and raffinose. To overcome these disadvantages a-galactosidase was used to reduce the amount of stachyose and raffinose, phytase to degrade the phytate, and RGase B to release fibre material. 

The composition of the resulting soy product is shown on Table V, where it is seen that the protein content was unchanged, whereas raffinose, stachyose and phytate were almost removed, and the amount of dietary fibres was improved. This demonstrates that the availability of relatively pure pectinolytic enzymes, like the used RGase B, opens up for the new types of soy processes and products. 

Harrison, Tarr and Hibbert96 investigated the production of levan from sucrose by the action of Bacillus subtilis Cohn and B. mesentericus Trevisan. Nutrient solutions containing 10% carbohydrate, 0.1% peptone, 0.2% disodium hydrogen phosphate and 0.5% potassium chloride were incubated at 37° for six days. Levan formation occurred only with sucrose and raffinose, and not with melezitose, lactose, maltose, D-xylose, D-glucose or D-fructose. It was therefore suggested that only those carbohydrates with a terminal D-fructofuranose residue were satisfactory substrates for levan formation. 

Hestrin and Avineri-Shapiro98 have recently suggested a mechanism for levan production from sucrose and raffinose by levansucrase. The enzyme was used in the form of the autolyzate from A. levanicum (rendered sterile with chloroform and thymol9). This autolyzate was incubated for twenty-four hours at 37° with four volumes of 3% sucrose solution and one volume of phosphate buffer (pH 5.0). 

It was found98 that the amount of sucrose consumed could be accounted for entirely as levan and reducing sugars. Fructose formed part of the reducing sugars produced, and there was no appreciable interconversion of aldose and ketose. When raffinose was used as substrate, the products were levan, melibiose and D-fructose (but not sucrose and D-galactose). The following equation expresses fully the net result of the action of the autolyzate ... 

Sometimes natural fine chemicals are by-products in bulk products refining. Examples are (a) lecithin and steroids in vegetable oil refining (b) betaine, pectin and raffinose in sugar manufacture (c) quinic acid in quinine extraction of the bark of Cinchona trees (d) chitin and the red pigment asthaxanthin in lobster and shrimp processing and (e) lanolin, lanosterol and cholesterol in sheep wool purification. 

Enzymes should be added to the feed together with the pre-mix. Granulated enzyme products may readily be mixed with feed components, as they are based on normal feed components such as wheat or soy grits. A wide range of enzyme products are available. Enzyme products should contain specific enzyme activities necessary to degrade specific substances such as glucans, starch, protein, pectin-like polysaccharides, phytic acid, raffinose, stachyose, hemicellulose, and cellulose. 

The sugars occurring in commercial products arc principally saccharose, invert sugar, glucose, levulose and, less frequently, maltose, lactose and raffinose. 

Determination of Saccharose, Raffinose and a Reducing Sugar together.—If the same notation as before is used and a represent the rotation due to 1 gram of the inversion products of raffinose, the following three equations hold ... 

Members of the raffinose family of oligosaccharides are present in appreciable concentrations in the nutritionally important food-legumes these are known to cause flatulence in man and other animals. Blair and coworkers144" quantitated the production of flatus in man,... 

Tritylation of sucrose has been explored intensively [277-282] to show the low reactivity of the primary hydroxyl group at C-l of the p-D-fructofuranosyl moiety. Monotritylation of raffinose afforded the 6 -trityl and 6"-trityl ethers in 1.7 and 9.4% yields [283], whereas the 1, 6, 6"-tri-0-trityl derivative was the major product (20%) of the trimolar tritylation [284],... 

A comparative study of the action of yeast invertase on sucrose, raffinose, and stachyose was reported by Adams, Richtmyer and Hudson (see Table V).23 Hydrolysis by invertase has been found to give D-fruc-tose, in each case, and the complementary aldose D-glucose, melibiose, or manninotriose. In general, the same products are formed as in mild acid hydrolysis. 

In 1930, Blagoveschenski claimed66 the synthesis of raffinose by the condensing action of almond emulsin on a mixture of sucrose and D-galac-tose. The small amount of product (which had [o]d + 95.66°) was hydrolyzed by emulsin, and may have been at least partly raffinose, but the work should be repeated, using a more definitive test for raffinose. 

Jackson and Hudson have shown79 that, on periodate oxidation, the D-galactopyranosides and the D-glucopyranosides of the same aglycon give identical products, a dextrorotatory dialdehyde from the a-D isomers and a levorotatory dialdehyde from the /3-d isomers. Raffinose being a... 

If the assumption that the sucrose and raffinose formed are not artifacts but are genuine hydrolysis products of stachyose is permitted, this work provides strong confirmation for the presence of sucrose (and raffinose) units in stachyose. Very recently, Courtois and associates91 have identified crystalline raffinose and sucrose, obtained from stachyose by action of coffee a-D-galactopyranosidase. 

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