Degradation of hemicellulosic and cellulosic polysaccharides in pickled green olives.

Changes that take place in the hemicellulosic and cellulosic polysaccharide fractions of the cell wall of olives (Olea europaea pomiformis, Manzanilla variety) during "Spanish style" processing have been studied. A comparative study of the extraction of hemicellulosic polysaccharides with and without prior delignification showed that these compounds could be extracted without previous delignification of the cell wall material. The depectinated material was sequentially extracted with 1 M and 4 M potassium hydroxide. In the unprocessed fruit, the neutral polysaccharides of the 1 M potassium hydroxide-soluble fraction contained mainly xyloglucans with significant amounts of arabinans. In the 4 M potassium hydroxide-soluble fraction, xyloglucans were the most important polysaccharide. The apparent molecular weight of these polysaccharides was 40 to 250 kDa. In addition, hemicelluloses (xylans and xyloglucans), which it was not possible to isolate in the previous stages of fractionation, were also found to be closely linked to the cellulose fraction. The most important changes during processing were the decrease in the molecular weight of xyloglucans in the 4 M potassium hydroxide-soluble fraction and the substantial decrease in the cellulose fraction, which in quantitative terms was one of the largest decreases that took place in the components of the total cell wall polysaccharides.