Isolation of diferulic bridges ester-linked to arabinan in sugar beet cell walls

After degradation of sugar beet cell walls with Driselase and fractionation of the solubilised products by hydrophobic interaction chromatography, a dehydrodiferuloylated oligoarabinan was isolated. Its structure was assigned to two dimers of (1 --> 5)-linked arabinose units esterified by a central 8-O-4' ferulic dimer. These results provide the first direct evidence that pectic arabinans in sugar beet cell walls maybe covalently cross-linked through dehydrodiferulates. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.