Phytoglycogen is a type of
glycogen
Glycogen is a multibranched polysaccharide of glucose that serves as a form of energy storage in animals, fungi, and bacteria. It is the main storage form of glucose in the human body.
Glycogen functions as one of three regularly used forms ...
extracted from plants. It is a highly branched, water-soluble
polysaccharide
Polysaccharides (), or polycarbohydrates, are the most abundant carbohydrates found in food. They are long-chain polymeric carbohydrates composed of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic linkages. This carbohydrate can react with wat ...
derived from
glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula , which is often abbreviated as Glc. It is overall the most abundant monosaccharide, a subcategory of carbohydrates. It is mainly made by plants and most algae d ...
.
Phytoglycogen is a highly branched polysaccharide used to store glucose in a similar way that glycogen is the glucose storage for animals. It is made up of branched, flexible chains on glucose molecules that grow similarly to synthetic
dendrimers. The special structure of the phytoglycogen allows it to have low
viscosity
Viscosity is a measure of a fluid's rate-dependent drag (physics), resistance to a change in shape or to movement of its neighboring portions relative to one another. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of ''thickness''; for e ...
, high water retention, as well as high stability in water, and stabilize bioactive compounds and form films on surfaces. Thus, this monodisperse
nanoparticle
A nanoparticle or ultrafine particle is a particle of matter 1 to 100 nanometres (nm) in diameter. The term is sometimes used for larger particles, up to 500 nm, or fibers and tubes that are less than 100 nm in only two directions. At ...
is able to be used in many different technologies.
[Xue, Jingyi & Luo, Yangchao. (2020). Properties and applications of natural dendritic nanostructures: Phytoglycogen and its derivatives. Trends in Food Science & Technology. 107. 10.1016/j.tifs.2020.11.013. ]
References
Polysaccharides
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