Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 13, 2025

Spectrophotometric Methods for the Study of Eukaryotic Glycogen Metabolism
Published on: August 19, 2021
On the performance of branching enzymes on chemically modified starches
Maurice K H Essers1, Lambertus A M van den Broek1, Hans Leemhuis2
1Wageningen Food & Biobased Research, PO Box 17, 6700 AA, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Abstract:
Branching enzymes (BEs; EC 2.4.1.18) catalyze transglycosylation reactions that create branches in native starch and glycogen. While BEs' activity have been extensively studied on native starches, to date their activity on chemically modified starches has not been reported. We demonstrate branching by Rhodothermus obamensis BE (RoBE) on both acetylated and hydroxypropylated starches. Initially, RoBE exhibited a slower rate of branching reaction on chemically modified starches compared to native starch, but over time, it achieved a comparable yield in branching. Additionally, the RoBE reaction was conducted on blends of acetylated and hydroxypropylated starches. MALDI-TOF MS analyses identified the existence of hybrid structures, providing evidence for an inter-transglycosylation reaction pattern. This identification of new pathways for starch modification, will enable the creation of new structures that are challenging to synthesise using conventional processes.
Related Concept Videos
Restriction Enzymes
The host bacteria protect their own genomic DNA from these enzymes by methylating these sites. Some...
Radical Chain-Growth Polymerization: Chain Branching
Restarting Stalled Replication Forks
Polymer Classification: Architecture

