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Cereal Chem 37:557 - 567.  |  VIEW ARTICLE

The Carbohydrates of the Gramineae. X. A Quantitative Study of the Carbohydrates of Wheat Germ

M. Dubois, W. F. Geddes, and F. Smith. Copyright 1960 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

The embryonic plant and scutellum, obtained by hand-dissection of a soft white wheat, variety Holland, comprised 1.25 and 1.39% respectively of the dry weight of the kernel. The total sugar content of the embryonic plant was 21.9% and of the scutellum 18.4% on a defatted dry matter basis, or 20.1% of the total embryo. Paper chromatography revealed that the sugars consisted almost entirely of sucrose (embryo, 54.7%; scutellum, 62.0%) and raffinose (embryo, 45.3%; scutellum 38.0%) with only traces of glucose. The sugar content of the scutellum decreased when the kernels were exposed to moisture for 1 and 2 days, indicating that the sugar content of the germ may be a useful index of the storage history of wheat. Commercial wheat germ milled from hard wheats which had been stored several months at 5 C. and then defatted, contained 16.8% total sugars (dry matter basis) consisting of 57.6% sucrose, 37.6% raffinose, 4.8% fructose, and small quantities of glucose. A single wheat germ may be analyzed by the micro techniques which have been devised.

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