Polysaccharides and the related compounds are attracting much attention because of their potential for the applications as new functional materials in many research field such as medicines, pharmaceutics, foods, and cosmetics. Therefore, precision synthesis of new polysaccharides with well-defined structure is increasingly becoming important. For this purpose, enzymatic method is a very powerful tool because the reaction proceeds with highly stereo- and regio-controlled manners. Furthermore, the structurally complicated polysaccharides are synthesized by the enzymatic method. Among the enzymes that have been employed for the synthesis of polysaccharides, phosphorylase exhibits a potential to be used for the practical synthesis of α-glucans. However, this enzyme has not been used in the wide variety of polysaccharide researches compared with hydrolases. Nowadays, however, the phosphorylase-catalyzed reaction (polymerization, chain-elongation) is well known and a major category in the enzymatic synthesis of polysaccharides.
This book focuses on advances in the practical synthesis of polysaccharides by the phosphorylase-catalyzed chain-elongation on the basis of the viewpoint of polysaccharide engineering. We believe that it will provide an active source of information for researches in polysaccharide science and engineering. Furthermore, this publication is directed to the researchers and engineers in various academic and practical fields interested in the importance of polysaccharide materials.
