Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Due to increasing lifestyle problems like diabetes, high blood sugar, and cholesterol, a significant refinement of research has been diverted towards high amylose and resistant starch cereal. Resistant starch (RS) is the portion of starch that escapes digestion in the small intestine and is known to have an array of health benefits. The present study aims at starch profiling, digestibility characteristics, and glycemic index prediction of maize genotypes. A range of RDS (75.4–91.1%), SDS (5.78–12.7%), and RS (0.35–10.95%) has been observed in the experimental genotypes. Moreover, results revealed that a significant positive correlation exists between amylose and resistant starch content (r = 0.96) whereas the negative correlation between amylose and SDS (r=-0.74); amylose and pGI (predicted Glycemic Index) (r= -0.98). ADHAM 15 mutant genotype was found to have maximum amylose and RS content making it a potential donor for producing low glycemic maize hybrids with pGI of 56.77. The scanning electron micrographs of three variants having the highest, intermediate, and lowest amylose content revealed the behavior of enzymatic digestion based on the difference in starch granule structure and organization pattern. SEM results depicted that high amylose maize starch granules were small, spherical, and more densely organized than low amylose maize.</p>