Cereal arabinoxylans in nutrition and industry: extraction strategies, functional properties, and health implications-a critical review and future perspectives.

Abstract

Arabinoxylans (AXs) are major non-starch polysaccharides found in cereals, attracting significant interest among cereal chemists, nutritionists, and food technologists for their technological and nutritional importance. Cereal-extracted arabinoxylans (CEAXs) exhibit a wide range of characteristics and yields, which vary based on the cereal source and the specific extraction or modification methods employed. Additionally, AXs are a family of biopolymers with useful industrial applications and functional properties like solubility, viscosity, gelling, and hydration. Notably, their complex fiber structure is associated with various health benefits, including prebiotic, antioxidant, and antidiabetic properties, making AXs particularly valuable in the medicinal and nutraceutical industries. AXs play a key role in supporting short-chain fatty acid production, regulating blood glucose, promoting beneficial microbiota, and enhancing antioxidant capacity. The current review elucidated extraction and modification strategies for obtaining arabinoxylans from cereals and by-products, and discussed the effects these strategies can have on yield, biochemical composition, molecular characteristics, and antioxidant activity. In this critical review, a significant gap in rational AXs ingredient design is addressed by synthesizing how extraction and modification strategies shape the structural features of cereal arabinoxylans and how these changes govern their functional and nutritional properties.