Abstract
IN an earlier paper1 we presented evidence which indicated that the starch molecule is made up of a large number of repeating units (each consisting of an unbranched chain of some thirty glucose units) combined together in such a way that the free reducing group of one unit is linked glucosidically with a hydroxyl group of the adjacent unit. It is now apparent that in the derivatives of starch we have examined, the hydroxyl group concerned in the glucosidic union of the repeating units, is a primary alcoholic group situated at C6 of one of the glucose residues. The occurrence of this mode of linkage was indicated previously2 and was suggested simultaneously by Freudenberg and Boppel3. In this connexion it may be mentioned that we have never advocated the views on the structure of starch recently attributed to us by Kurt Meyer4, and that, on the other hand, if each of the units represented in the formula suggested by Meyer is considered to contain some thirty glucose residues, his formula becomes identical in type with the structure we have advocated1.
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References
Hirst and Young, J. Chem. Soc., 1471 (1939).
Bawn, Hirst and Young, Faraday Society Discussion, May 1940; Trans. Faraday Soc., 36, 881 (1940).
Naturwiss., 28, 264 (1940).
Meyer, K., Helv. chim. Acta, 23, 880 (1940).
Hanes, New Phyt., 36, 538 (1937).
Method of Oldham and Rutherford for estimation of primary alcoholic group in sugars. J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 54, 366 (1932).
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BARKER, C., HIRST, E. & YOUNG, G. Linkage between the Repeating Units in the Starch Molecule. Nature 147, 296 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147296a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147296a0
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