CORRELATING THE KINETICS OF BRANCHED POLYMER SYNTHESIS WITH A DESIRED CHARACTERISTIC OF THE POLYMER

摘要

The present invention relates to the analysis of the structure and synthesis of branched polymers of biological origin and the effects of these parameters o n the end use of the branched polymer. In particular, the present invention relates to the correlation of the kinetics of starch production to the usefulness of a particular starch i n a given food or non-food application. The methods of the present invention are capable of showing the rates of all the different enzymatic processes that lead to a particular branched polymer structure. The present invention surprisingly teaches that the rate co- efficients of polymer chain propagation, termination and/or branching, as used in free radical synthetic polymer chemistry, can be used for analysing the kinetics of branched polymer synthesis in biological systems. In one aspect, the present invention provid es a method of analysing the kinetics of branched polymer synthesis, which comprises (l) determining the absolute molecular weight distribution of individual branches of a polymer, and/or another property(ies) characterizing starch polymer microstructure, and (ii) using the absolute molecular weight distribution, and/or another property(ies) characterizing starch polymer microstructure, data obtained from step (i) to calculate the rate coefficient or rate of at least one of chain propagation, termination or branching during formation of the polymer, wherein the polymer is of biological origin. The data obtained from this method can be used as an indicator of the kinetics of branched polymer synthesis. Polymers obtained from different biological origins, especially different strains and/or mutants of the same species of organism and/or under different growth conditions, can be analysed and variations in the kinetics compared between the different sourc es of the polymer. These branched polymers from different sources can also be tested f or their suitability for various end-uses (desirable characteristics) of the branched polymer. These two factors, kinetics and suitability for a particular end-use, can th en be compared to establish a correlation between the rate of at least one of chain propagation, termination or branching and suitability for a particular end use. This ultimately allows a polymer to be analysed by the methods of the invention to ascertain suitable end-uses for the polymer without the need to conduct extensive trials on different end- uses, and/or test a polymer for a given end-use when it will clearly not be suitable for that end-use as predicted by the kinetic analysis.