Unraveling the deterioration mechanism of dough during whole wheat flour processing: A case study of gluten protein containing arabinoxylan with different molecular weights

This study aims to the effect of arabinoxylan (AX) on gluten quality. Ultrasonic treatment is utilized to degrade water unextractable arabinoxylans (WUAX) from wheat bran, which obtains three molecular weights of AX. The results indicate that the shear viscosity and particle size of AX were decreased and the ζ-potential was increased after ultrasonic treatment. Analysis of the gluten shows that the free SH of gluten with 6% WUAX, SAX10, and SAX30 (ultrasound duration for 10 min and 30 min) was increased by 51.9%, 48.1%, and 17.0%, respectively, whereas the free SH of 2% SAX30-gluten was increased by 19.8%. Furthermore, WUAX impaired the viscoelasticity properties of gluten, while SAX30 improved the viscoelasticity of gluten. WUAX induced the open, fragile, and discontinuous structure of gluten. On the contrary, SAX30 promoted the formation of the compact and regular gluten structure. Overall, ultrasonic as a non-chemical treatment could be used to improve the quality of whole-wheat foods.