Structural Characteristics, Physicochemical Properties, and Digestibility Analysis of Resistant Starch Type-V Prepared from Debranched Corn Starch and Fatty Acid Complexation

[Image: see text] Corn starch was gelatinized and treated with a metagenomic type 1 pullulanase (Pul(M)), increasing the proportion of linear glucan chains. The debranched corn starch (DCS), containing amylose helices, was subjected to complexation with fatty acid molecules at moderate temperatures (50–60 °C). The amylose–lipid complexes prepared using saturated fatty acids, e.g., capric acid (CA) and lauric acid (LA), displayed higher CI values as compared to that of unsaturated fatty acid compounds, e.g., undecylenic acids (UAs) and oleic acid (OA). The DCS–fatty acid complex was estimated to contain about 14% of rapidly digested starch (RDS), 26% of slowly digested starch (SDS), and 60% of resistant starch V (RS-5). RS-5 samples exhibited high resistance toward digestive enzymatic hydrolysis. The surface microdetails of RS-5 were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), depicting small spherulite-like structural aggregates. X-ray diffraction pattern analysis estimated about 46% of the crystallinity of RS-5. Thermal attributes of RS-5 were examined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, depicting the increase in melting enthalpies after the complexation of fatty acid molecules with debranched corn starch. Comparative DSC thermograms divulged a relatively higher stability of RS-5 as compared to that of RS-3. The findings advocated the potentiality of RS-5 (nondigestible DCS-LA complex) as a functional, valuable ingredient in the food industry.