Cyclodextrin Glycosyltransferase - Catalytic Activities

Catalytic Activities

All of the CGTases can catalyze up to four reactions: cyclization, coupling, disproportionation and hydrolysis. All these activities share the same catalytic mechanism which is common to all glycosyl-hydrolases.

Cyclization is the process through which a linear polysaccharidic chain is cleaved and the two ends of the cleaved fragment are joined to produce a circular dextrin (cyclodextrin or CD): on the basis of the number of sugar residues this circular product is made of three main type of cyclodextrins can be distinguished, α-CD with six residues, β-CD with seven residues and γ-CD with eight residues.

The coupling reaction can be easily described as the reverse process of cyclization: the enzyme cleaves a cyclodextrin to produce a linear dextrin which is subsequently joined to a linear oligosaccharide.

Disproportionation is very similar to coupling, but the cleaved dextrin is not a cyclodextrin, but a linear oligosaccharide that is then joined to a second oligosaccharide.

CGTase also has a weak hydrolyzing activity which consists in cleaving the longer polysaccharidic chains into shorter fragments.