Pectin Oligosaccharides (POS)

Abstract

Pectin is a natural polymer commonly found in vegetable tissue, especially in cell walls of higher plants. Pectin has an extensive use in food and pharmacological industries, mainly due to its gelling, emulsifying, stabilizing, and thickening capacity. It also has the benefit of being cheap and environmentally friendly since it can be extracted from citrus peels, apple pomace, sugar beet waste, etc. Moreover, as pectin is classified as soluble dietary fiber, a renewed interest has arisen on the health benefits of consumption of pectin, including cancer prevention, enhancement of the immune system, anti-inflammatory activity or antiobesogenic effect.Pectin oligosaccharides (POS) are obtained from pectin and are considered emerging prebiotics due to their ability to modulate the composition of the gut microbiota on the host, mainly by stimulating growth of beneficial microorganisms like Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus and by decreasing the number of pathogenic bacteria and reducing inflammation. Several in vitro studies showed that POS were fermented by the gut microbiota, acting as prebiotic by increasing the production of short-chain fatty acids while reducing the production of putrefactive compounds. POS could be extracted by enzymatic, chemical, or physical treatment of pectin, resulting in a variety of compounds with differences in the structure that could be associated with different properties, both as prebiotic and as a functional ingredient. This chapter describes the extraction methodologies available to obtain POS from different sources of pectin, the changes in the structure of the polymers, and its uses as prebiotic or as a functional ingredient in food and pharmacology.