Effect of disulphide-cleaving reagents in the Zeleny sedimentation test

The importance of fibrillar protein interactions in the Zeleny sedimentation test was investigated by determining the effects of including disulphide-cleaving reagents in the test reagents. The sediment volume decreased with increasing concentration of the cleaving reagent. A breakdown of the floc structure that occurred on adding sodium sulphite resulted in flour particles being suspended in the supernatant. A reduction in the sediment volume was found to be consistent with a decrease in the percentage of fibrillar particles in floc. This underlines the importance of protein fibril interaction in the Zeleny test.