•High speed shearing (HSS) may not eliminate aggregates of pectin very efficiently.•Disaggregation and degradation of pectin occurred during the whole HSS treatment.•A method was proposed to measure Mw of the pectin containing many large aggregates.•High speed shearing has no effect on the primary structure of pectin.The effect of high speed shearing (HSS) on disaggregation and degradation of pectin from creeping fig seeds was investigated. It was found that disaggregation and degradation occurred during the whole shearing process. When pectin solution was sheared at 24,000 rpm for less than 8 h, degradation happened but disaggregation was dominant during this period. After 8 h, degradation became obvious, however, a small amount of aggregates remained even after 24 h treatment, indicating that HSS may not eliminate aggregates efficiently. The presence of aggregates is one of the most probable causes for the inaccurate determination of molecular weight of pectin. A new method was proposed for calculating more accurately the molecular weight based on the change of the reducing sugar content and the variation of molecular weight. Determination of unsaturated uronide and FT-IR spectra analysis indicated that neither β-elimination nor demethoxylation occurred during the HSS, and no new functional group was formed during the HSS process.

•Cell wall composition of P. microphylla turcz leave was first time analyzed.•Oxalate-soluble pectin has excellent gelling and thickening properties.•Observing morphology of residues can help to evaluate extracting agent efficiency.Premna microphylla turcz leaves (PMTL) have been used for preparing a “green tofu” by Chinese for a long history. Chemical composition analysis indicated alcohol insoluble solids (AIS) of PMTL contained high amount of pectin. Water, ammonium oxalate, hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide were used to extract different pectic fractions sequentially. Ammonium oxalate was found to be the most effective extracting agent, reflecting on a high yield (20.61%) and a significant change of morphology of AIS. The resulted oxalate-soluble pectin (OXSP) showed high galacturonic acid content (76.15%) and average molecular weight (980.67 kDa), low neutral sugar content (6.41%) and degree of methoxylation (14.90%). All of the characteristics have contributed excellent gelling and thickening properties of OXSP. These results may allow an improved use of PMTL as a resource of low-methoxyl pectin, and observation of the morphology of residues can be helpful for evaluating the efficiency of extracting agents.