Objectives of this study were to compare ethanol production between normal and waxy corn using a cold fermentation process and to understand effects of starch structures and properties on ethanol production. Ethanol yields positively correlated (p < 0.01) with starch contents of kernels of the normal and waxy corn. The average starch-ethanol conversion efficiency of waxy corn (93.0%) was substa...

The roles of starch branching enzyme (SBE, EC 2.4.1.18) IIa and SBE IIb in defining the structure of amylose and amylopectin in barley (Hordeum vulgare) endosperm were examined. Barley lines with low expression of SBE IIa or SBE IIb, and with the low expression of both isoforms were generated through RNA-mediated silencing technology. These lines enabled the study of the role of each of these i...

Mature roots of sugar beets, which accumulate large amounts of sucrose but not starch, nevertheless contained acid and neutral amylases, judging from their pH optima, as well as pullulanase. Acid and neutral amylases were partially purified by procedures including fractionation with ammonium sulfate, ion exchange column chromatography, and gel filtration. Acid amylase was classified as an exoam...

The sugary-2 mutation in maize (Zea mays L.) is a result of the loss of catalytic activity of the endosperm-specific SS (starch synthase) IIa isoform causing major alterations to amylopectin architecture. The present study reports a biochemical and molecular analysis of an allelic variant of the sugary-2 mutation expressing a catalytically inactive form of SSIIa and sheds new light on its centr...

Abstract: The objective of this work was to select cassava (Manihot esculenta) genotypes from the Brazilian germplasm bank with a functionality similar that waxy starch. A total 881 were pre-selected using principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering, their industrial potential compared 7745-5WX WX-Maize maize clones, both used as references. Two stood out: BGM0036 BGM0083. Samples ...

Starch is an extraordinarily versatile polymer used in a wide array of products from paper to prepared foods. Despite its current wide usage, its potential for additional applications continues to be explored. Unfortunately, new creative developments are hampered, in part, because of a lack of detailed structure and function studies on all but the basic amylose and amylopectin molecules. To bet...

Neisseria meningitidis is the causative agent of meningococcal sepsis and meningitis. Neisseria polysaccharea is a nonpathogenic species. N. polysaccharea is able to use sucrose to produce amylopectin, a starch-like polysaccharide, which distinguishes it biochemically from the pathogenic species N. meningitidis. The data presented here indicate that this may be an insufficient criterion to dist...

Chlamydomonas reinhardtii displays a diurnal rhythm of starch content that peaks in the middle of the night phase if the algae are provided with acetate and CO(2) as a carbon source. We show that this rhythm is controlled by the circadian clock and is tightly correlated to ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase activity. Persistence of this rhythm depends on the presence of either soluble starch synthas...

We investigated the mechanism of amylose synthesis in Arabidopsis leaves using (14)C-labeling techniques. First, we tested the hypothesis that short malto-oligosaccharides (MOS) may act as primers for granule-bound starch synthase I. We found increased amylose synthesis in isolated starch granules supplied with ADP[(14)C]glucose (ADP[(14)C]Glc) and MOS compared with granules supplied with ADP[(...

Starch is the most widespread and abundant storage carbohydrate in plants and the main source of carbohydrate in the human diet. Owing to its remarkable properties and commercial applications, starch is still of growing interest. Its unique granular structure made of intercalated layers of amylopectin and amylose has been unraveled thanks to recent progress in microscopic imaging, but the origi...