Enzymatic synthesis of amylose

Abstract

Amylose is a linear polymer of α-1,4-linked glucose and is expected to be used in various industries as a functional biomaterial. However, pure amylose is currently not available for industrial purposes, since the separation of natural amylose from amylopectin is difficult. It is known that amylose has been synthesized using various enzymes. Glucan phosphorylase, together with its substrate, glucose-1-phosphate, is the most suitable system for the production of amylose since the molecular size of amylose can be controlled precisely. However, the problem with this system is that glucose-1-phosphate is too expensive for industrial purposes. This review summarizes our work on the enzymatic synthesis of essentially linear amylose, together with recent progress in the production of synthetic amylose using sucrose or cellobiose through the combined actions of phosphorylases.

• Amylose
• cellobiose phosphorylase
• glucan phosphorylase
• sucrose phosphorylase