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An Evaluation of Confocal Microscopy for the Study of Starch Granule Enzymic Digestion
Author(s) -
Lynn Andrew,
Cochrane M. Patricia
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
starch ‐ stärke
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1521-379X
pISSN - 0038-9056
DOI - 10.1002/star.19970490306
Subject(s) - granule (geology) , confocal , digestion (alchemy) , starch , confocal microscopy , saliva , wheat starch , chemistry , optical microscope , microscopy , nile red , microscope , chromatography , materials science , food science , biology , biochemistry , optics , scanning electron microscope , composite material , microbiology and biotechnology , fluorescence , physics
Industrially prepared wheat starch granules were stained with the fluorochrome Nile Blue A, and subjected to digestion with human saliva. Using a confocal microscope, the degradation of two granules was recorded in sets of optical sections gathered over a seven hour period. Each set of these optical sections was digitally processed to produce a reconstructed 3 dimensional image of the starch granules. Using this technique it was therefore possible to follow the internal and external digestion of each wheat starch granule in real time.