Industrial production and applications of α/β linear and branched glucans
Geetha Venkatachalam, Senthilkumar Arumugam, Mukesh Doble
Abstract
Glucans are biopolymers made up of repeating units of D-glucose and are of biological origin with varying molecular weights. The differences in their linkage, chemical structure, branching and substitutions afford them unique properties. This review deals with the production and applications of α and β glucans from different sources such as cereal, yeast, fungi, plants, bacteria, and current global manufactures and their market value. The market value of glucans is more than 200 M US$ and expected to grow rapidly in medical, food and cosmetic industries. Applications of some of the industrially important α glucans, namely, dextran, amylopectin, glycogen, pullulan, amylose and β glucans; namely cereal glucan, yeast glucan, curdlan, laminarin, microbial cellulose, lentinan are described. Chemical modification of glucans can help in improving their properties for wider applications. A thorough understanding of these biopolymers could expand their applications in newer fields and may help in replacing some of the synthetic polymers which have several associated waste disposal and toxicity problems.