Study on the impact of temperature, salts, sugars and pH on dilute solution properties of Lepidium perfoliatum seed gum

Abstract The functional properties of food gums are remarkably affected by the quality of solvent/cosolutes and temperature in a food system. In this work, for the first time, the chemical characterizations and dilute solution properties of Lepidium perfoliatum seed gum (LPSG), as an emerging carbohydrate polymer, were investigated. It was found that xylose (14.27%), galacturonic acid (10.70%), arabinose (9.07%) and galactose (8.80%) were the main monosaccharaide components in the LPSG samples. The uronic acid content of LPSG samples was obtained to be 14.83%. The average molecular weight and polydispersity index of LPSG were to be 2.34 × 105 g/mol and 3.3, respectively. As the temperature was increased and the pH was decreased and the concentration of cosolutes (Na+, Ca2+, sucrose and lactose) presented in the LPSG solutions was enhanced, the intrinsic viscosity [η] and coil dimension (R coil , V coil , υ s ) of LPSG molecular chains decreased. Activation energy and chain flexibility of LPSG were estimated to be 0.46 × 107 J/kg.mol and 553.08 K, respectively. The relative stiffness parameter (B) of LPSG in the presence of Ca2+ (0.079) was more than that of Na+ (0.032). Incorporation of LPSG into deionized water (0.2%, w/v) diminished the surface activity from 76.75 mN/m to 75.70 mN/m. Zeta potential (ζ) values (−46.85 mV–−19.63 mV) demonstrated that dilute solutions of LPSG had strong anionic nature in the pH range of 3–11. The molecular conformation of LPSG was random coil in all the selected solution conditions. It can be concluded that temperature and presence of cosolutes can significantly influence on the LPSG properties in the dilute systems.

has been found that the mucilage obtained from the seeds of this plant, called Lepidium perfoliatum seed gum (LPSG), could be used as thickening and stabilizing agents due to shear thinning nature of its dispersions (Koocheki, Mortazavi, et al., 2009;Yousefi & Ako, 2020). The optimized procedure which leads to extract the LPSG form the seeds has been obtained by , in which the extraction temperature of 48.1°C, pH of 8, water to seed ratio of 30:1 and process time of 1.5 h found to be the optimized conditions of extraction. Shear thinning behavior was observed for the LPSG dispersions at various temperatures (5-65°C) and concentrations (0.5%-2%, w/w), and also it was found that salts (NaCl, KCl, MgCl 2 , CaCl 2 ) and pH (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11) can remarkably influence the apparent viscosity of the dispersions .
Study on dynamic rheology of the LPSG dispersions (1.5%-3%, w/v) in the linear viscoelastic region has been shown that the dispersions exhibited viscoelastic properties at the given temperature of 5-85°C (Hesarinejad et al., 2014). Moreover, some functional properties of LPSG such as its emulsifying properties in the presence of whey protein concentrate (Soleimanpour et al., 2013), as well as its ability in fabrication of biodegradable nanocomposites have recently been proved (Seyedi et al., 2014).
Based on the literatures, study on the dilute solution properties of hydrocolloids gives a comprehensive insight into their fundamental characteristics. Finding out the molecular weight, the interaction with a solvent and the molecular shape, seems to be useful when the application of a particular hydrocolloid in a dilute solution and at a specific condition is desired (Hesarinejad et al., 2015). The surrounding medium of a macromolecules can affect the conformation of polyelectrolyte (Fathi et al., 2017), therefore a lot of studies have been found in which researchers focused on the effects of various solvent conditions on the conformation of hydrocolloids (Amini & Razavi, 2012;Behrouzian et al., 2014;Fathi et al., 2017;Hesarinejad et al., 2015;Mirabolhassani et al., 2016;Sherahi et al., 2018;Yousefi et al., 2014;Yousefi et al., 2016). In aqueous solution, the interaction of macromolecules and solvent's molecules can be changed by altering the quality of solvent through the use of commonly additives such as salts and sugars.
Intrinsic viscosity, [η], is a criterion of the capability of macromolecules in solution to increment the viscosity of the solution. The intrinsic viscosity of a macromolecule in a solution is certainly associated with the quality of solvent. Accordingly, understanding any change in intrinsic viscosity can help to conceive the changes in molecular hydrodynamic volume, conformation and molecular associations (Amini & Razavi, 2012).
Analytical information such as chemical characteristics and structural properties are key factors to find the field of application and acceptability of an emerging hydrocolloid as an authorized food additives . To the best of our knowledge, no study was taken up to investigate the chemical characterizations as well as the aqueous properties of LPSG at various conditions. Therefore, the main objectives of this work were (a) to characterize the chemical properties of LPSG powder using gas chromatography (GC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and gel permeation chromatography with multi-angle light scattering detection (GPC/MALLS), and (b) to investigate the effect of varying temperatures (25-65°C) and different ions (Na + , Ca 2+ , 0-200 mM), sugars (sucrose 0%-40% w/v, and lactose 0%-10% w/v) on some hydrodynamic parameters in order to shed light on the behavior of LPSG in solution. As the salts and sugars used in this study are of the most abundant food additives, so study on the dilute solution of LPSG in the presence of these additives can also shed light on its behavior in real food systems.

| Materials
Lepidium perfoliatum seeds used in this study were provided locally from a medical plant supplier in Tabriz, Iran. The impurities of the seeds including dust, dirt, stones, chaff, immature and broken seeds were manually removed and the cleaned seed were subjected to extraction process. All chemicals used in this study were of analytical grade and supplied from Merck Company.

| Extraction of Lepidium perfoliatum seed gum
For extraction of LPSG the method described by  was implemented. In brief, the ratio of 30:1, distilled water: seed, at 48°C was prepared so that the seeds were completely soaked in the water. The pH of mixture solution was kept on 8 by adding adequate amounts of 0.1 M HCl and/or NaOH. The water-seed mixture was manually stirred during 90 min of the extraction process. Afterwards, the swelled seeds were removed from the water the mucillages obtained were taken from the seeds and oven-dried for 36 h at 50°C, and then milled and sieved by a sifter (100 mesh size).

| Monosaccharide analysis
Monosaccharide composition of LPSG sample was determined according to the method of Kamerling et al. (1975) modified by Montreuil et al. (1986). The identification and determination of monosaccharides required hydrolysis by methanolysis of the polymer so as to get only monomers. The glycosidic residues were then trimethylsilylated in order to make them volatile. They were thus identified and determined by GC under form of O-trimethylsilylated methylglycosides. Approximately 400 μg of lyophilized sample and 50 μg of pentaerythritol and 50 μg of myo-inositol (internal references) were placed in a dry bath in the presence of 500 μl of a mixture of methanol/HCl 3 N (Supelco) for 4 h at 110°C. After cooling to room temperature, the methanolysate was neutralized with silver carbonate, and then 50 μl of acetic anhydride were added in order to reacetylate the osamines. After a night in the dark and at room temperature, the samples were centrifuged for 15 min at 3000 rpm and the supernatant was evaporated off under a nitrogen jet. The compounds were then dissolved in 70 μl of pyridine and incubated overnight at room temperature with 70 μl of sylon (BSTFA:TMCS, 99:1, Supelco). After gentle evaporation of the excess reagents under a nitrogen jet, the trimethylsilyl methylglycosides were taken up in 650 μl of dichloromethane and then injected by GC (AGILENT GC-6850 system, in-column injection, FID detector: flame ionization). The gas vector was hydrogen and the HP-5MS type column (30 m, 0.25 mm internal diameter) was non-polar. The temperature rise program was as follows: 120°C maintained for 1 min, then a gradient of 1.5°C/min up to 180°C followed by a gradient of 2°C/min up to 200°C.

| Molecular weight measurement
Weight average molecular weight (M w ) and number average molecular weight (M n ) of LPSG were determined by GPC/MALLS. The samples were dissolved at a concentration of 1 mg/ml with the eluent used on the system. To improve the solubilization, it was necessary to pass the solutions to an ultrasonic bath and to heat at 35°C. Then, the samples were filtered through 0.2 μm before being injected onto two Shodex OHpak SB 806 M HQ columns placed in series at a temperature of 30°C. The system was calibrated by pullulan standard. The eluent used was 0.1 M sodium nitrate+0.03% sodium azide at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min. The volume injected for each measurement was 100 μl. The elution time was 70 min, and the detection was performed using a Wyatt refractometer, a Shimadzu UV detector at the wavelength of 280 nm and a 3-angle Wyatt light scattering detector. For this series of measurements, the value of the refractive index increment dn/dc was 0.155 ml/g. Polydispersity index (PDI) was also calculated (PDI = M w /M n ). The analyses were carried out in triplicate.

| 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance analysis
To perform NMR analysis, about 10 mg LPSG powder have been dissolved in 1 ml D 2 O and 1 H NMR spectra of the LPSG samples were carried out on a 400.13 MHz Bruker AVANCE III spectrometer.
The proton spectrum was recorded at 353 K with a spectral width of 4006 Hz, 32,768 data points, 4.089 s of acquisition time, a relaxation time of 1 s and 64 scans.

| Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis
Infrared absorption spectrum of LPSG samples were recorded using IRAffinity-1S spectrometer (Shimadzu) at a scan range of 4000 cm −1 -400 cm −1 at a resolution of 2 cm −1 . The LPSG samples were measured as a KBr pellet.

| Surface activity measurement
The surface activity of the LPSG solutions (0.1%-0.5%, w/v) was determined by measuring the surface tension at the air-water interfaces using a tensiometer (GBX Digidrop). To calibrate the apparatus Milli-Q water was used. At each concentration, three measurements were carried out at ambient temperature (25°C) and the average values were recorded.

| Preparation of Lepidium perfoliatum seed gum solutions
By tray and assay experiments, LPSG solutions with concentration of 0.125% (w/v) were provided by the dissolution of 0.0625 g (d.b.) LPSG powder in 50 ml deionized water as well as salt (NaCl and CaCl 2 , 0-200 mM) and sugar (sucrose 0%-40% w/v, and lactose 0%-10% w/v) solutions at room temperature (300 rpm, 24 h). For the pH-adjusted stock solution, pH of LPSG solutions was adjusted from 3 to 7 with 0.1 N HCl and 0.1 N NaOH under continuous stirring (300 rpm) at room temperature for 6 h. Then, the solutions were double filtered through 0.45 μm syringe filter with cellulose acetate membrane (Macherey-Nagel, Germany) to remove any insoluble particulate matter.

| Intrinsic viscosity measurement
Dilute solutions of LPSG were prepared by adding a distinct amount of the solvents to the stock solution (0.125%, w/v). The intrinsic viscosity of all LPSG solutions were measured using an Ubbelohde capillary viscometer (Cannon Instruments Co.; viscometer constant, k = 0.007690 mm 2 s −2 ), immersed in a thermostatic water bath equipped with a precise temperature controller (1) = to maintain the selected temperatures (25, 35, 45, 55 and 65°C which in these equations, sp is specific viscosity, rel is relative viscosity, and k′, k″ and C are, respectively, the Huggins constant, Kraemer constant and solute concentrations (g/dl).

| Chain flexibility parameter
It is stated that in the Newtonian region of a polymer solution, increment in temperature leads to decrement in viscosity which follows Arrhenius equation (Equation [5]) (Stephen, 1995): in which, η is the dynamic viscosity (Pa.s), A is a constant number, E a is the activation energy of the flow process [kJ/(kg mol)], R is the universal gas constant (8.314 [kJ/(kg mol K)]) and T is the absolute temperature (K). The E a value can be considered as a criterion of polymer chain flexibility. Accordingly, when the dynamic viscosity is replaced with the intrinsic viscosity, the slope obtained for natural logarithmic intrinsic viscosity against the inverse of absolute temperature (1/T) can be used for calculation of the chain flexibility of a polymer due to its relation to the E a .

| Determination of relative stiffness parameter (B) and persistence length (q)
The stiffness parameter (S) of the LPSG chains was obtained based on the following equation from the intrinsic viscosity's slope at various ionic strengths versus the inverse square root of ionic strength (I −0.5 ) plot (Lai & Chiang, 2002): in which, [η] ∞ exhibits the intrinsic viscosity at infinite ionic strength. As the constant S is powerfully molecular weight dependent, therefore B parameter has been introduced as an independent stiffness parameter which can be calculated as follows: in this equation, the ν parameter was found to be within the range of 1.2-1.4, so the mean value of 1.3 is often used as a constant number. Also, the value of [η] 0.1 indicates the intrinsic viscosity at an ionic strength of 0.1 M. In this case, there is another character so-called "persistence length" (q) which is a criterion of the length and it is related to B parameter (Eteshola et al., 1996). In brief, q is a measure of the length over which the chain ″persists″ in the direction of the first bond of the chain. The equation which shows the relation between B and q parameters is as follows:

| Estimation of the molecular conformation
For this reason, the exponent b from the slope of a double logarithmic plot of specific viscosity against concentration was calculated. It is stated that the conformation of polysaccharides can be estimated through this parameter (Higiro et al., 2007):

| Shape and swollen volume parameters
The intrinsic viscosity is associated with shape function and swollen specific volume, which are two meaningful molecular parameters and can be obtained based on the following equation (Equation [10]): here, υ parameter is the shape function, which also known as the viscosity increment, and υ s parameter is swollen specific volume or voluminosity (Antoniou et al., 2010). It is reported that the υ parameter is corresponded to an anhydrous macromolecule will essentially expand when suspended or dissolved in solution due to the solvent association. Moreover, the υ s parameter can be considered as a criterion of the solvent associated with the macromolecule or by definition, it is the volume of macromolecule in solution per its unit anhydrous mass (Mirabolhassani et al., 2016).
The swollen specific volume is associated with the relative viscosity which it can be obtained through the intercept of a plot of the following equation (Equation [11]) versus concentration (Yousefi et al., 2014): so, the υ parameter can be attained from specific swollen volume and intrinsic viscosity using Equation (11). (2)

| Coil radius and volume
From the Einstein viscosity relation, Antoniou et al. (2010) have stated that the hydrodynamic radius (R coil ) can be determined using the following equation: in which, M w and N A are, respectively, the average molecular weight and the Avogadro's number (6.022 × 10 23 mol −1 ).
By the assumption that we have a sphere-like coil, therefore the corresponding coil volume (V coil ) can be calculated from the following equation:

| Statistical analysis
In this study, SPSS 17 software (SPSS Inc.) was used for statistical analyses of the results obtained from dilute solutions of LPSG at different conditions (temperatures, salt and sugar concentrations). The results were evaluated with 5% significance level (p < .05) by oneway analysis of variance (anova), and the mean values were compared using Duncan test. Data were obtained at least in duplicate and presented as the mean ± standard deviation.

| Molecular weight of
Homogeneity and molecular weight distribution of polymers are defined by the PDI. This high value of PDI observed for the LPSG samples indicates large dispersity of molecular weight of its fractions.
We know that the M n is biased toward the lower molecular-weight fraction and the M w is biased toward the higher molecular-weight fraction. Consequently, a high value of PDI is an indication of presence of a large number of low-molecular-weight molecules together with a small number of very large molecules.

| 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance and FTIR analyses
1 H NMR spectrum of LPSG was recorded which is depicted in 4.9 and 4.9-5.5 ppm are, respectively, associated to α-anomeric and β-anomeric 1 H (Whistder & BeMiller, 1959). The signals obtained between 3.1 to 3.8 ppm have also been assigned to -O-CH 3 residue (Nep & Conway, 2010), indicating the presence of methylated (-CH 3 ) monosaccharide in the samples. This result was in agreement with that of obtained from GC-MS analysis which showed the presence of rhamnose (6.41%) in the monosaccharide compositions (Table 1).
The resonances observed at 1.32 and 1.91 ppm are, respectively, associated with the existence of ether group (CH 3 -CH 2 -O) and Oacetylated galacturonic acid residues in the LPSG structure (Wang et al., 2017).
The FTIR spectrum of LPSG is depicted in Figure 2b.
Polysaccharide's fingerprint region can be observed at the bands between 900 to 1200 cm −1 , and the bound at 893 cm −1 of this region is corresponded to α and β linkages in the polymer structure (Jin, 2012).
The observed bands around 1421 and 1620 are related to the presence of symmetric stretching vibration of COO-in LPSG structure.

| Zeta potential (ζ )
The type and amount of electrostatic interactions for charged bi-

| Surface activity
The surface tension of LPSG solutions in air-water interface as a function of concentration is depicted in Figure 4. As the concentration of LPSG was elevated from 0% to 0.2%, the surface tension value gradually decreased from 76.75 mN/m to 75.70 mN/m.
It has been stated that increase in surface tension as a results of increase in polymer concentration could be attributed to gelation and high viscosity (Naji-Tabasi et al., 2016). In dilute solution domain, it can be supposed that at higher concentration, larger amounts of macromolecules can migrate to the air-water interface, and consequently, more reduction in surface tension occurs. Furthermore, it has also been mentioned that the surface tension of gums is attributed to existence of protein in their compositions (Garti et al., 1997).
Accordingly, the presence of 4.6% protein in the composition of LPSG powder (Yousefi & Ako, 2020) is expected to contribute to surface activity of its dispersions. More reduction in surface activity of water has been reported affected by the solutions of Australian chia seed gums (Timilsena et al., 2016). Hydrocolloid gums exhibit low degree of surface activity due to their hydrophilic nature. It is reported that gum Arabic and xanthan gum at 10 g/kg diminish the surface tension of water to 60 mN/m and 42 mN/m, respectively (Timilsena et al., 2016).

| Intrinsic viscosity
The hydrodynamic volume of macromolecules which is regarded to the dimension of polymer chain can be sensed by the intrinsic viscosity. The values of intrinsic viscosity of LPSG in the selected conditions calculated from the equations of 2-4 are tabulated in Table 2.
A good fitness results was observed for Huggins and Kraemer models (.83 ≤ R 2 ≤ .99) in which the [η] is, respectively, calculated by extrapolation of η sp /C and ln rel /C values to the zero concentration.
Many studies have revealed that the [η] can be calculated much precisely by the models in which this parameter presents in their slopes.
From the results at 25°C, in the presence of cations (Na + and Ca 2+ ), a large decrease in intrinsic viscosity of LPSG was observed (45%-71% for Na + , and 61%-84% for Ca 2+ ), which was more pronounced at higher ionic concentrations. Furthermore, more remarkable reduction influence of di-cation Ca 2+ on intrinsic viscosity of LPSG was obtained in comparison with mono-cation Na + , indicating Na + was less effective in decreasing molecular dimensions of LPSG than Ca 2+ . The same behavior has been reported for Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012), sage seed gum (Yousefi et al., 2014) and cress seed gum (Behrouzian et al., 2014). This decrease is due to the charge screening of electrostatic repulsions of the tri-saccharide side-chain, which leads a more compact conformation and causes a reduction in hydrodynamic size of the molecule (intrinsic viscosity). In addition, the impacts of ions on intrinsic viscosity may be related to the ionic nature of some macromolecules, and since LPSG solution is a polyelectrolytes (with zeta potential of −40.18 mV and uronic acid content of 14.83%), so its hydrodynamic characteristics will be influenced by the presence of ions in the solution (Sherahi et al., 2018).
As the concentration of sucrose (from 10% to 40%) and lactose (from 2.5% to 10%) increased, the extent of [η] was decreased 35% and 33%, respectively. In proportion to the selected concentrations, this result implies more reduction in intrinsic viscosity of LPSG in the presence of lactose compared to sucrose. Similar results have been reported for other emerging carbohydrate polymers such as Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012) and basil seed gum (Mirabolhassani et al., 2016). The competition between the sugars and LPSG molecules for water is probably the reason for consequent diminution of intrinsic viscosity with increasing the sugars concentration (Behrouzian et al., 2014

Surface tension (mN/m)
acidic condition is related with the decrease of molecular weight, resulting in the shorter length of side chain of macromolecules (Bak & Yoo, 2018). The same results were reported for the impact of acidic conditions on the apparent viscosity of LPSG dispersions at the pH range of 3-5 .

| Chain flexibility and activation energy
The slope of the curve obtained by the plot of ln [η] against the reciprocal of absolute temperature (1/T) gives a criterion of molecular chain flexibility ( Figure 5). Accordingly, the value of 553.08 K was calculated as the chain flexibility factor (E a /R) for LPSG at the temperature within the range of 25-65°C. This value was close to the value of 618.54 K reported for Alyssum homolocarpum seed gum (Hesarinejad et al., 2015) and 665.35 K for basil seed gum (Mirabolhassani et al., 2016), but was lower than that of several hydrocolloids such as 1100 K for xanthan (Milas & Rinaudo, 1986), 1156.53 K for Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012), 3046.45 K for sage seed gum (Yousefi et al., 2014) and 1353 K for Descurainia Sophia seed gum (Sherahi et al., 2018). Accordingly, it can be proposed that LPSG has exactly low level of flexibility. This characteristic comes from the low value of M w of LPSG (234.1 kDa, Table 1), and it is stated that low molecular weight macromolecules cannot be able to entangle sufficiently in solutions and have lower degree of flexibility (Chen & Tsaih, 1998). The molecules with lower flexibility, due to lower degree of entanglement and stronger structure, could be exploited in encapsulation process for holding the liquid inside the capsule (Chen et al., 1996). So, LPSG can be an appropriate encapsulator in food and pharmaceutical systems.
Generally, the value of activation energy (E a ) for most of Carbohydrate Polymers is in the range of 1 × 10 7 to 1 × 10 8 [J/ (kg mol)] (Chen & Tsaih, 1998 indicates low temperature sensitivity of LPSG compared to the most of hydrocolloids.

| Relative stiffness parameter (B) and persistence length (q)
Hydrocolloids mostly are utilized in the food/pharmaceutical systems which commonly contain some salts, therefore it is important to find out the impact of ions on their rheological properties (Yousefi et al., 2014). Based on the Equations (6) and (7), the stiffness (S), the relative stiffness (B) and the intrinsic viscosity at infinite ionic strength ([η] ∞ ) parameters were calculated in the presence of the selected cations (ν was supposed to be 1.3) ( Table 4) (Table 2). Consequently, it can be concluded that LPSG molecule in confronting with monovalent cations has a rather flexible conformation, whilst in the presence of divalent ones has a semi-flexible/stiff conformation. In comparison, the B values of LPSG in the presence of Na + (0.032) and Ca 2+ (0.079) were found to be lower than those reported for Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012), sage seed gum (Yousefi et al., 2014), Prunus armeniaca gum (Fathi et al., 2017) and Descurainia Sophia seed gum (Sherahi et al., 2018), indicating stiffer conformation for LPSG in comparison to the mentioned hydrocolloids.
The persistence length parameter (q) of LPSG in the selected ionic solutions calculated using the Equation (8) is represented in Table 4. As it can be seen, the q values for LPSG in the presence of Na + (8.125 nm) was greater than that of Ca 2+ (3.291 nm), which confirms less flexibility (stiffer backbone) of LPSG molecular chains in the solution containing divalent cations. The q values acquired in the salt solutions for LPSG were greater than those obtained for sage seed gum (Yousefi et al., 2014) and Descurainia Sophia seed gum (Sherahi et al., 2018), but were lower than those of xanthan (Camesano & Wilkinson, 2001).

TA B L E 3
Comparison of the average molecular weight and intrinsic viscosity of LPSG with some hydrocolloids

| Molecular conformation
Base on the study of Morris et al. (1981) which is the slope of power-law model (Equation (9)), was obtained at various solution conditions and it is represented in Table 2. It has been reported that in aqueous solution, b values greater than 1 are associated with the random coil conformation, while less values are related to the rod-like conformation (Morris et al., 1981). This value for LPSG was 1.08-1.12 at the selected temperatures (25-65°C), and was 1.07-1.14 at the selected pH, and also was in the range of 1.14-1.28 and 1.06-1.17 in the presence of the ions and sugars, respectively. Accordingly, the molecular conformation of LPSG is probably random coil in all the selected solution conditions. The higher values obtained in the presence of ions may be as a result of shielding influence of charges on polyelectrolyte chains (Goycoolea et al., 1995).
The values of b parameter increased when ions concentration increased, which exhibited that they are able to booster the random coil conformation of LPSG. Similar results have been reported for xanthan gum (Higiro et al., 2007), cress seed gum (Behrouzian et al., 2014), Descurainia sophia seed gum (Sherahi et al., 2018).

| Shape function and swollen specific volume
The results obtained for the shape function (υ) and swollen specific volume (υ s ) of LPSG macromolecules at the various solution conditions are depicted in Table 5. It was observed that every 20°C increment in temperature resulted in 20% and 19% decrement in υ s , indicating the diminution of the coil dimension of LPSG macromolecules or the solvent power (Yousefi et al., 2014). According to the description for quantitative values of coil shape function provided by Antoniou et al. (2010), the LPSG molecules have oblate or prolate coil shape at the selected temperature. As it is evident from the results, the value of υ increased up to 0.99 with increasing temperature, demonstrating more contraction at higher temperature. Similar results have been reported for dextran (Antoniou et al., 2010) and Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012). A greater reduction in the υ s value of LPSG as a result of more molecular contraction was occurred in the presence of Ca 2+ (87%-98%) compared to Na + (72%-92%), which was in accordance with the results of intrinsic viscosity (Table 2). The shape function of LPSG molecules in the presence of the ions was roughly found to be ellipsoidal shape. Based on the statement of Montesi et al. (2004), this ellipsoidal shape reveals that the monomers of polymers effectively attract each other to minimize their contacts with the solvent molecules; therefore, a roughly spherical or ellipsoidal shape forms which have lesser flexibility.
In the presence of sucrose and lactose, the υ s values of LPSG decreased (38%-81%), and this decrement was more evident at higher concentrations of the sugars. This result was in agreement with the results attained for some emerging carbohydrate polymers (Amini & Razavi, 2012;Fathi et al., 2017;Mirabolhassani et al., 2016). As it can be seen (Table 5), the shape factor in the sugar solutions of LPSG is oblate or prolate; however, at higher concentrations the coil shape tends to be spherical. A decrease in value of υ s up to 47% was observed, when the pH of solutions decreased from 7 to 3, and the shape factor in this range of pH was oblate or prolate shape for LPSG coils (Antoniou et al., 2010).

| Coil radius and volume
Based on the value of the M w reported aforementioned (2.34 × 10 5 g/ mol, at 25°C), the coil radios (R coil ) and the corresponding volume (V coil ) of LPSG macromolecules were determined as a function of the solution conditions (Table 5). The ion type and the ionic concentration revealed significant reduction influences on the values of R coil and V coil . Regardless of the ion type, both of the coil parameters were reduced to a greater extent in divalent solutions and higher concentrations. As expected, these results were in agreement with the results reported for intrinsic viscosity (Table 2), demonstrating these parameters are profoundly affected by the hydrodynamic volume of macromolecules in solutions. So, the higher the ions concentration, the more extent of the molecular contraction and the lower the values of R coil and V coil (Fathi et al., 2017;Yousefi et al., 2014).
Comparatively, the estimated value of 1.71 nm for R coil of LPSG and the corresponding value of 20.93 nm 3 obtained for V coil parameter (in deionized water, 25°C) were approximately close to the value of 1.46 nm and 13.03 nm 3 stated for basil seed gum (Mirabolhassani et al., 2016), but were lesser than those reported for other Carbohydrate Polymers (Amini & Razavi, 2012;Fathi et al., 2016;Fathi et al., 2017;Hesarinejad et al., 2015;Yousefi et al., 2014).
Both of the coil parameters were decreased in the presence of selected sugars particularly at higher concentration. Comparatively,

TA B L E 4
The molecular parameters estimated for LPSG by using the equations (6-8) ab it is evident that the reduction impact of lactose on the coil dimensions parameters of LPSG molecules is more prominent. This difference may be influenced by the difference of the molecular conformation and spatial orientation of the disaccharide molecules.
In this case, similar results have been reported for Balangu seed gum (Amini & Razavi, 2012), basil seed gum (Mirabolhassani et al., 2016), and Prunus armeniaca gum (Fathi et al., 2017). The coil parameters were also diminished (7% for R coil and 20% for V coil ) as the pH of solutions was decreased from 7 to 3, indicating a reduction in the size of LPSG coils in the acidic pH, that it is reported to be influenced by the decrease in molecular weight of macromolecules (Bak & Yoo, 2018).

| CON CLUS ION
A little difference between the compositions of LPSG powder, which may affect its properties in the solutions, can be considered as a limitation of this study. In this work, the average molecular weight of LPSG (M w ) was found to be 2.34 × 10 5 g/mol, at 25°C, which indicates this carbohydrate polymer has low molecular weight. The Higiro model (Equation (4)) represented better fitting results for estimation of the intrinsic viscosity of LPSG at the selected conditions. In comparison, the intrinsic viscosity of LPSG in deionized water was relatively lower than that for most of commercial hydrocolloids. The reduction sensitivity of intrinsic viscosity of LPSG in the presence of Ca 2+ , lactose and acidic pH was found to higher than the other conditions. The results revealed that LPSG had exactly low level of flexibility (553.08 K). The anionic nature of LPSG was identified at a broad range of pH (3-11

TA B L E 5
The values of shape factor, swollen specific volume, coil radius and volume of LPSG estimated by the equations (10-13) at the selected solution conditions ab systems. This issue will be taken into consideration in subsequent researches.

ACK N OWLED G M ENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistansce given by the

CO N FLI C T O F I NTE R E S T
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.