System analysis of the state and prospects for the development of the production of inulin (review)

The review informs on the results of the research of the application of inulin as a bioactive prebiotic in functional nutritional products, in cosmetic formulations and pharmaceuticals as the excipient of anticancer agents on the basis of the system analysis. The steady trend of the world growth of inulin production of 8-10 % a year has been noted. The aim of the research is to reveal and to analyze the effect of the system complex of inulin production in sequential chain from the inulin synthesis, its accumulation in plants and extraction. The Jerusalem artichoke is the most advanced kind of raw material which has the high crop yield of tubers up to 40 t/ha and inulin content up to 20 %. The sucrose and the synthesizing enzymes 1-SST and 1-FFT take an active part in the inulin biosynthesis as their genes can be edited with the purpose of changing the inulin content. At the Jerusalem artichoke breeding the most prospective trend is the cross-species hybridization drawing on the example of a topinsunflower with the crop yield of tubers of 40 t/ha. In the Jerusalem artichoke seed breeding the new methods of clonal micropropagation of tubers and its cultivation in the airhydroponic environment with the achievement of the inulin content no less than 20 % have been studied. At Jerusalem artichoke cultivation the breed is significative for the maximum crop yield of tubers with the row width of 90 cm and with the interval between tubers in a row – 30 cm. The least loss of the tubers weight and the inulin content in them under the long-term storage is achieved at the temperatures from -5 to 0 °C. The technology of the Jerusalem artichoke tubers processing into inulin is suggested as the system of partly optimized technological operations from peeling and washing the tubers to receiving the powdered inulin and the oligofructose syrup. The system complex is suggested in the form of the structural topological model combining 4 systems: «Selection and seed breeding», «Agritechnologies», «Harvesting and storage of tubers», «The tubers processing technologies» with the interrelations in the form of the technological requirements and the output data of every system and of the complex as a whole, which is the basis for the development of the agri-food technology of inulin from Jerusalem artichoke and other kinds of raw materials.