Abstract
AF4 [1] is a sub-technique widely used of Field Flow Fractionation (FFF) that separates molecules based on their size. AF4 is based on an external force perpendicular to the flow of the channel applied in order to fractionate all analytes.Food sector is the leading consumer of wheat, with segmented products and consumption patterns that meet specific requirements in terms of quantity and quality. Facing to this development, progress in characterization is essential and the use of common analytical instruments is necessary for the better understanding of protein composition in wheat.With this work, our objective was to answer to the following questions: Is AF4 able to give the protein composition of wheat samples? What type of information can it provide in addition to the SE-HPLC analysis ?Our studies explore the use of a Frit-Inlet [2], channel. Frit-Inlet, has a channel design modified from AF4 by introducing a small inlet frit at the beginning end of the depletion wall so that sample relaxation can be made hydrodynamically by the use of the compressing action of the frit flow entering through the small inlet frit. Components are separated according to their size by their diffusion coefficient. Quantitative detector is UV (214nm) and MALS is used to determine molecular weight, size and conformation. We want to discuss in this work, that Frit-Inlet AF4 does not produce any artefact and is a preferred FFF method for the separation of wheat proteins.