Hybrid Structures with Amylose Blocks

The strict primer dependence of the glycogen phosphorylases makes them ideal candidates for the synthesis of hybrid structures of amylose with non-natural materials (e.g., inorganic particles and surfaces, synthetic polymers). For this, a primer functionality (maltooligosaccharide) can be coupled to a synthetic structure and subsequently elongated by enzymatic polymerization resulting in amylose blocks. 

As shown above, hybrid structures bearing amylose blocks can be synthesized by covalent attachment of primer recognition units for phosphorylase and subsequent enzymatic grafting from polymerization. Following the same route we are currently synthesizing hybrid materials bearing (hyper)branched polysaccharide structures as shown in figure 6 with the described tandem reaction of two enzymes. 

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