A reliable and rapid method for soluble sugars and RFO analysis in chickpea using HPAEC–PAD and its comparison with HPLC–RI

A high performance anion exchange chromatography (HPAEC) coupled with pulsed amperometric detection (PAD) was optimised to separate with precision, accuracy and high reproducibility soluble sugars including oligosaccharides present in pulse meal samples. The optimised method within 20 min separated myo-inositol, galactinol, glucose, fructose, sucrose, raffinose, stachyose and verbascose in chickpea seed meal extracts. Gradient method of eluting solvent (sodium hydroxide) resulted in higher sensitivity and rapid detection compared to similar analytical methods. Peaks asymmetry equivalent to one and resolution value ⩾1.5 support column’s precision and accuracy for quantitative determinations of soluble sugars in complex mixtures. Intermediate precision determined as relative standard deviation (1.8–3.5%) for different soluble sugars confirms reproducibility of the optimised method. The developed method has superior sensitivity to detect even scarcely present verbascose in chickpea. It also quantifies myo-inositol and galactinol making it suitable both for RFO related genotype screening and biosynthetic studies.