Tongji School of Pharmacy, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430030, China,
Anal Bioanal Chem. 2013 Nov;405(28):8969-80. doi: 10.1007/s00216-013-7129-1. Epub 2013 Jul 11.
Two highly branched glucose polymers with similar structures--starch and glycogen--have important relations to human health. Slowly digestible and resistant starches have desirable health benefits, including the prevention and alleviation of metabolic diseases and prevention of colon cancer. Glycogen is important in regulating the use of glucose in the body, and diabetic subjects have an anomaly in their glycogen structure compared with that in healthy subjects. This paper reviews the biosynthesis-structure-property relations of these polymers, showing that polymer characterization produces knowledge which can be useful in producing healthier foods and new drug targets aimed at improving glucose storage in diabetic patients. Examples include mathematical modeling to design starch with better nutritional values, the effects of amylose fine structures on starch digestibility, the structure of slowly digested starch collected from in vitro and in vivo digestion, and the mechanism of the formation of glycogen α particles from β particles in healthy subjects. A new method to overcome a current problem in the structural characterization of these polymers using field-flow fractionation is also given, through a technique to calibrate evaporative light scattering detection with starch.
两种结构相似的高度支化葡萄糖聚合物——淀粉和糖原——与人类健康有着重要的关系。缓慢消化和抗性淀粉具有理想的健康益处，包括预防和缓解代谢疾病以及预防结肠癌。糖原在调节体内葡萄糖的利用中很重要，与健康受试者相比，糖尿病患者的糖原结构存在异常。本文综述了这些聚合物的生物合成-结构-性能关系，表明聚合物特性研究产生的知识可用于生产更健康的食品和针对改善糖尿病患者葡萄糖储存的新药靶点。例如，通过设计具有更好营养价值的淀粉的数学建模，直链淀粉精细结构对淀粉消化性的影响，从体外和体内消化收集的缓慢消化淀粉的结构，以及健康受试者中糖原α颗粒从β颗粒形成的机制。还提供了一种克服使用场流分级分离对这些聚合物结构特性进行当前分析的问题的新方法，通过用淀粉对蒸发光散射检测进行校准的技术。
