Structural features of a water-soluble arabinoxylan from the endosperm of wheat.

A cold-water-soluble wheat-endosperm arabinoxylan consisting of a backbone of (1----4)-linked beta-D-xylopyranosyl residues that are variously unsubstituted, and 3- or 2,3-substituted with single alpha-L-arabinofuranosyl groups, was subjected to 1H-n.m.r. spectroscopy. The results of 2D homonuclear Hartmann-Hahn and 1D 1H-n.m.r. spectroscopy allowed the identification of 3- and 2,3-substituted xylose residues, each with adjacent unsubstituted xylose residues, and also substituted xylose residues with a substituted xylose residue as a neighbour. The 1H-n.m.r. data were correlated with 13C-n.m.r. data by means of a 13C-1H 2D proton-detected heteronuclear multiple-quantum correlation experiment, which showed that only different types of branching (i.e., 3- and 2,3-) can be identified by the 13C-n.m.r. data.