Preparation of porous starch from native starch by using fungal amylase and evaluation of its adsorption property on natural pharmacodynamic compounds

Due to the reliable safety of starch, it has a wide range of applications in pharmaceutical fields and food sectors. Enzymatic preparation of porous starch can better maintain the properties of starch and expand its applications, which indicates that the research on starch is worthwhile. According to the enzymatic hydrolysis ratio and the morphology of starch particles, the technological method was determined by using unpretreated corn starch as raw material and the fungal amylase as hydrolysis amylase. Then the technological conditions for preparing corn porous starch through enzymatic hydrolysis were optimized by single factor experiment. The morphology of porous starch was obtained via scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The infrared spectrum (FTIR) showed that the porous starch had a same molecular structure compared with native starch. X-ray diffraction (XRD) displayed that the crystal structure of porous starch was quite consistent with the native starch. The study on adsorption properties of porous starch for natural pharmacodynamic compounds genistein exhibited that the adsorption behaviors of porous starch were found to conform well to the Freundlich model and the pseudo-first-order model. Besides, the release assay demonstrated that the genistein which was incorporated into porous starch possessed superior sustained release effect. The porous starch obtained by enzymatic hydrolysis had ideal adsorption properties for natural pharmacodynamic compounds and is valuable as a drug carrier material.