Butyrylation of Maize and Potato Starches and Characterization of the Products by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and In Vitro Fermentation

Intake of butyrylated starches may increase colonic butyrate supply, which can be of public health and clinical benefit by maintaining colonic health. The objective was to investigate if an organocatalytic method with tartaric acid as a catalyst could be applied to produce butyrylated products from different starch sources and to characterize their chemical structure and fermentation capability by using solid-state (13)C MAS NMR (magic angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy and an in vitro fermentation model, respectively. Low-amylose and high-amylose potato starch (LAPS and HAPS) and low-amylose and high-amylose maize starch (LAMS and HAMS) were subjected to organocatalytic butyrylation. This resulted in products with an increasing degree of substitution (DS) measured by heterogenous saponification and back titration with the HCl (chemical method) depending on reaction time. NMR analysis, however, showed that the major part of the acylation was induced by tartarate (75–89%) and only a minor part (11–25%) by butyrate. Generally, the chemical method overestimated the DS by 38% to 91% compared with the DS determination by NMR. Increasing the DS appeared to lower the in vitro fermentation capability of starches independent of the starch source and, therefore, do not seem to present a feasible method to deliver more butyrate to the colon than lower DS products.