Glycogen phosphorylase enzymatic polymerization

The glycogen phosphorolysis of phosphorylase can be reverted, which makes it possible to enzymatically polymerize amylose as well as hybrid structures with amylose as outlined in the following section. 

Enzymatic Polymerization of Amylose with Glycogen Phosphorylase... 

The fact that glycogen phosphorylase can be used to polymerize amylose was first demonstrated by Schaffner and Specht [110] in 1938 using yeast phosphorylase. Shortly after, the same behavior was also observed for other phosphorylases from yeast by Kiessling [111, 112], muscles by Cori et al. [113], pea seeds [114] and potatoes by Hanes [115], and preparations from liver by Ostern and Holmes [116], Cori et al. [117] and Ostern et al. [118]. These results opened up the field of enzymatic polymerizations of amylose using glucose-1-phosphate as monomer, and can be considered the first experiments ever to synthesize biological macromolecules in vitro. 

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. 

Enzymatic polymerization of amylose with glycogen phosphorylase... 

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