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Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Analysis and Specification of Starch Granule Size Distributions
Published on: March 4, 2021
Mesoscale modelling of starch digestion
Muriel C van der Laan1, John R Bows2, Julia M Yeomans1
1Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Abstract:
An idealised mesoscale model of the enzymatic digestion of starch modelled as a polymer aggregate is used to study the effect of various enzyme properties, such as the enzyme efficiency, range and radius, on the rate at which monomers are released from the aggregate. Depending on the enzyme efficiency the process is found to be either reaction- or diffusion-limited. Additionally the digestion rate is found to be proportional to the volume around each bond that is accessible to the enzyme, which is determined by the range and radius of the enzyme. Simulations of uniformly mixed susceptible and resistant polymers reveal no significant effect on the digestion of the susceptible polymers due to the presence of the resistant polymers.
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