What is amylopectin?
amylopectin is a type of starch, a complex carbohydrate that contains 60% of the carbohydrates that people consume. It is a polysaccharide, a long chain of sugars, in this case composed of glucose. Unlike the most linear type of starch known as amylosis, amylopectin has many branches in its chain. Starch is produced by plants as a molecule of energy storage and stored in leaves, stems, roots, fruits and seeds. Many basic foods such as wheat, rice, corn, potatoes and cassation contain starch.
Most plants create excess glucose. Individual glucose molecules are highly soluble in the water, occupy a lot of space and can move in and out of the cell. On the other hand, the starch molecules are not soluble in the water and pack a large number of glucose molecules into a relatively small space. This makes the storage molecule for glucose. They have a chemical bond that easily breaks to release sugars as a source of energy if necessary.
amylopectin GearIt includes about 75 to 80% of starch molecules of most plants, while the rest is composed of amylose. There are some mutant plants composed of wax starch that have all their starch in the form of amylopectin. Examples are waxy rice, corn and potato starches. This type of starch has a stronger texture and more strength than a linear species. On the other hand, other plants - such as amylomaize - have starch containing high amylosis.
The structure of amylopectin is similar to the structure of polysaccharide glycogen for storing animal glucose. The length of the amylopectin chain ranges from 2,000 to 200,000 glucose units. The twinning is held every 20 to 24 molecules of glucose. Starch is stored in granules, often in specialized structures called amyloplast. The size of these granules differs dramatically between different plants.
Though people cdigest uncooked starch, cooking, make it easierE process of digestion. Human saliva contains salivary amylase, also known as ptyalin . This enzyme initiates the degradation of amylosis and amylopectin, where it is linear. It breaks the string into smaller fragments and finally on units of two glucose molecules. This final structure is known as maltose .
part of this degradation takes place in the mouth. The rest of the salivary amylase continues to degrade the starch in the stomach until the stomach acids are not activated. This enzyme is degraded only a small amount of diet starch. Most of these are degraded to maltosis and isomaltos using pancreatic amylase. These ingredients are divided into glucose by intestinal cells.
Starch is widely used in food preparation and is also used to produce corn syrup with a high content of fructose and sugar. It is used industrially in paper, packaging and chemical industry. Amylopectin has properties such as the greater ability to connect with other compounds that make this industrial industry more usefulthan amylosis. It is used to make adhesives, trap and lubricants.