Amylose production

At present cellobiose is not a practical substrate for amylose production, but the enzymatic degradation of cellulose is extensively studiedand the conversion of cellobiose into amylose by the CBP-GP system should be the important way to convert cellulosic biomass into value-added materials and products. 

In the starch field, successive aqueous leaching of the granules yields amylose products of differing properties. ... 

Figure 8. Electron micrographs of immobilized cells in the gel (a-amylose production) (a) gel immediately after immobilization (b) gel after 40-hr incubation.

It is possible that such cyclized products form a fraction of the titanocene-amylose products. We have previously synthesized analogous cyclic products but are unable to assign confidently specific IR bands associated with such cyclic products. 

Similar materials are available based on potato starch, eg, PaseUi SA2 which claims DE below 3 and has unique properties based on its amylose—amylopectin ratio pecuhar to potato starch. The product contains only 0.1% proteia and 0.06% fat which helps stabilize dried food mixes compounded with it. Another carbohydrate raw material is waxy-maize starch. Maltodextrias of differeat DE values of 6, 10, and 15, usiag waxy-maize starch, are available (Staley Co.). This product, called Stellar, is offered ia several physical forms such as agglomerates and hoUow spheres, and is prepared by acid modification (49). Maltodextrias based oa com starch are offered with DEs of 5, 10, 15, and 18 as powders or agglomerates (Grain Processing Corp.). 

Com and rice starches have been oxidized and subsequently cyanoethylated (97). As molecular size decreases due to degradation during oxidation, the degree of cyanoethylation increases. The derivatized starch shows pseudoplastic flow in water dispersion at higher levels of cyanoethylation the flow is thixotropic. Com and rice starches have been oxidized and subsequently carboxymethylated (98). Such derivatives are superior in the production of textile sizes. Potato starch has been oxidized with neutral aqueous bromine and fully chemically (99) and physically (100) characterized. Amylose is more sensitive to bromine oxidation than amylopectin and oxidation causes a decrease in both gelatinization temperature range and gelatinization enthalpy. 

Amylases are exoen2ymes that attack amylose chains and result in the successive removal of maltose units from the nonreducing end. In the case of amylopectin, the cleaving stops two to three glucose units from the a-1,6-branching points. ( -Amylase [9000-91-3] is used for the production of maltose symps and for adjunct processing in breweries. The most important commercial products are made from barley or soybeans. 

Starches can be separated into two major components, amylose and amylopectin, which exist in different proportions in various plants. Amylose, which is a straight-chain compound and is abundant in potato starch, gives a blue colour with iodine and the chain assumes a spiral form. Amylopectin, which has a branched-chain structure, forms a red-purple product, probably by adsorption. 

Polysaccharides formed from a-glucose are called starches. A starch stores sugar until it is needed for energy production. Three important starches are glycogen, which animals produce in their livers, and amylose and amylopectin, produced by plants through photosynthesis. On average, plant starch is about 20% amylose and 80% amylopectin. Each of these polysaccharides contains glucose as its monomer, but they differ in how the monosaccharide units are linked. 

Cellulose is a high molecular weight polymer of D-glucose with fi( 1 -4)-glycosidic bonds, found in plant fibres it is the major component of most plant tissues. Starch is another common polysaccharide, containing two polymers of glucose, amylose and amylopectin. It was used in some paint preparations and in the production of paper. Acid treatment of starch produces dextrins, which are used as adhesives and additives in water colour paintings. 

It is obviously important that the fractionation products should be adequately characterized. The only accurate method for ascertaining the purity of the starch components, and also the amylose/amylopectin ratio in whole starch, is to determine potentiometrically the amount of iodine bound.8 38 Colorimetric methods which have been suggested37 38 are useful for comparative measurements, but are often not absolute. The yield of... 

Successful methods entail precipitation of the amylose from solution as an insoluble complex, which is removed by high-speed centrifuging the amylopectin is isolated from the supernatant liquor by precipitation with alcohol or, more satisfactorily, by freeze-drying. (Precipitation with alcohol does not always appear to be quantitative, and the physical form of the product obtained by freeze-drying is more satisfactory for subsequent dissolution and esterification.) The amylose can then be further purified by reprecipitation with the same or, preferably, a different complexing agent. 

The fractionation of acid- and alkali-treated starches has been reported,64 but the products are obviously degraded. Further work is, however, necessary on the use of alkaline solutions for fractionating starch. Pacsu10 maintains that the addition of an amylose precipitant to an alkaline dispersion... 

Amylose is thus extremely susceptible to degradation in the presence of hydroxyl ion. Two mechanisms may be involved (1) a stepwise degradation caused by the reducing end-group s undergoing enolization followed by degradation to acidic products (this must occur in the presence or absence of oxygen), and (2) a random, catalytic, hydrolytic scission of 4—>l-a-D... 

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