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Amylopectin / ˌ æ m ɪ l oʊ ˈ p ɛ k t ɪ n / is a water-insoluble [1] [2] polysaccharide and highly branched polymer of α-glucose units found in plants. It is one of the two components of starch, the other being amylose. Relation of amylopectin to starch granule. Plants store starch within specialized organelles called amyloplasts. To ...
Starch (a polymer of glucose) is used as a storage polysaccharide in plants, being found in the form of both amylose and the branched amylopectin. In animals, the structurally similar glucose polymer is the more densely branched glycogen, sometimes called "animal starch". Glycogen's properties allow it to be metabolized more quickly, which ...
Depending on the plant, starch generally contains 20 to 25% amylose and 75 to 80% amylopectin by weight. [4] Glycogen, the energy reserve of animals, is a more highly branched version of amylopectin. In industry, starch is often converted into sugars, for example by malting.
Starch is stored in the amyloplasts, a specialized organelle found within plant cells, as starch grains. [4] The starch grain is specifically important for study due to the fact that it is commonly found in most plants, its long-lasting nature, as well as the diverse forms and structures that they can take based on which taxa they belong to. [4]
The swelling of starch grains and their growth was described by a molecular-aggregate model, which he also applied to the cellulose of the plant cell wall. The modern usage of ' micelle ' refers strictly to lipids, but its original usage clearly extended to other types of biomolecule , and this legacy is reflected to this day in the description ...
When animals and fungi consume plants, they use cellular respiration to break down these stored carbohydrates to make energy available to cells. [2] Both animals and plants temporarily store the released energy in the form of high-energy molecules, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), for use in various cellular processes.
Amylose is important in plant energy storage. It is less readily digested than amylopectin; however, because of its helical structure, it takes up less space than amylopectin. As a result, it is the preferred starch for storage in plants. It makes up about 30% of the stored starch in plants, though the percentage varies by species and variety. [13]
Starch synthesis and storage also takes place in chloroplasts, a type of pigmented plastid involved in photosynthesis. [1] Amyloplasts and chloroplasts are closely related, and amyloplasts can turn into chloroplasts; this is for instance observed when potato tubers are exposed to light and turn green.