Evaluation of High-Performance Liquid Chromatography for Measurement of the Neutral Saccharides in Neutral Detergent Fiber

The ability of two high-performance liquid chromatographic columns to measuee the six neutral monosaccharides, glucose, mannose, galactose, rhamnose, arabinose, and xylose, and cellobiose found in neutral detergent fiber (NDF) hydrolysates was evaluated by using saccharide standards and hydrolysates of NDF residues from a typical low-fiber diet and from a fecal sample collected during ingestion of the low-fiber diet. The normal-phase column did not adequately separate the hexoses, major saccharides in NDF, while galactose and rhamnose, present only in small quantities, coeluted from the heavy metal column. The heavy metal column was 2-3 times more sensitive than the normal-phase column and detected cellobiose. The detection capabilities and other operating properties of the heavy metal column make it the column of choice to separate saccharides commonly found in food and fecal NDF.