Glycans in Bioenergy and Materials Science

Malcolm A. O'Neill; Robert J. Moon; William S. York; Alan G. Darvill

doi:10.1101/glycobiology.3e.059

Glycans in Bioenergy and Materials Science

Review

In: Essentials of Glycobiology [Internet]. 3rd edition. Cold Spring Harbor (NY): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2015. Chapter 59.

2017.

Authors

Malcolm A. O'Neill, Robert J. Moon, William S. York, Alan G. Darvill

Book Editors

Book Affiliations

¹ Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
² Professor of Surgery, Director, National Center for Functional Glycomics, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
³ Distinguished Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Co-Director, Glycobiology Research and Training Center, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
⁴ Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Chair and Professor of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, New York, USA
⁵ Professor and Chairman of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁶ Professor of Mycology, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
⁷ Regents Professor and Director, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
⁸ Professor, Laboratory of Immunoglycobiology, WPI Immunology Frontier Research Center, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan
⁹ Professor of Glycoproteomics and Glycomics, Macquarie University and Institute for Glycomics, Griffith University, Sydney, Australia
¹⁰ Professor and Eminent Scholar, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
¹¹ Professor, Departments of Pharmacology and Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
¹² Director, Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany

Excerpt

Plant glycans are used by humans for many purposes. Wood, which is composed predominantly of lignified secondary walls, is used as an energy source, as a building material, and for papermaking. Pectins isolated from the primary cell walls of fruits and polysaccharides isolated from seeds are used as thickeners, stabilizers, and gelling agents in many foods and beverages. Plant cell walls are the major component of forage used as animal feed. These walls, as dietary fiber, also contribute to human health. Recent concerns about unstable and diminishing oil supplies have led to renewed interest in using plant glycans as feedstocks for energy production, for the generation of polymers with improved or new functionalities, and for the generation of high-value chemical precursors. In this chapter, we briefly describe four broad categories—bioenergy, fine chemicals and feedstocks, polymeric materials, and nanomaterials—in which plant glycans have the potential to replace or to provide alternatives to petroleum-based products.

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