**Acknowledgement**

This paper was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), (23390041) and partly for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (23111004), and by MEXT-supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities.

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**Chapter 8** 

© 2013 Huazano-García and López, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

properly cited.

the fructose moiety of sucrose [4].

called fructooligosaccharides (FOS) [5, 6].

**Metabolism of Short Chain Fatty Acids in** 

**Supplementation of Diets with Agave Fructans** 

Most plants store starch or sucrose as reserve carbohydrates, but approximately 12-15% of higher plants (representing more than 40,000 species) synthesizes fructans as their main source of carbohydrates [1]. Fructans are found naturally in plants as a heterogeneous mixture of different polymerization degrees, they are a polydisperse mixture. Among plants that store fructans, many are economically important, due to its content of fructans, as it is the case of chicory (*Cichorium intybus*), agave (*Agave spp*.), artichoke (*Cynara scolymus*), dahlia (*Dahlia variabilis*), garlic (*Allium sativum*) and wheat (*Triticum asetivum*) [2, 3]. Five different groups of fructans have been found in nature and distinguished according to the type of linkage between fructose units and the position of the glucose moiety within the structure. These groups consist of inulins, neoseries inulins, levans, neoseries levans and graminans. Inulins consist of a linear β(2-1) linked fructosyl chain; neoseries inulins are composed of two linear β(2-1) linked fructosyl chains, one bound to the fructosyl residue of the sucrose, the other bound to the glucosyl residue of the same sucrose molecule; levans consist a of linear β(2-6) linked fructosyl chain; neoseries levans are composed of two linear β(2-6) linked fructosyl chains, one bound to the fructosyl residue of the sucrose, the other bound to the glucosyl residue and graminans which present both linkages, β(2-1) and β(2-6) links to

Currently, inulins are extracted from chicory roots, containing fructose chains having a degree of polymerization (DP) from 3 to 60 [2] (Figure 1a). The chemical or enzymatic (endoinulinases) hydrolysis of inulins produces inulins of shorter DP (DP<10), these are

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**the Colon and Faeces of Mice After a** 

Alicia Huazano-García and Mercedes G. López

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51248

**1. Introduction** 

**1.1. Fructans** 
