Prof. Appa Rao Podile, Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad (UoH) and Professor of Plant Sciences, School of Life Sciences at UoH has been granted an Indian Patent for his research work on “A process for synthesizing higher chain chitooligosaccharides (CHOS)”. The patent has been issued on 23rd September 2019 for a period of twenty years from the date of filing the same i.e. 19th October 2011.
This invention relates to a process for synthesizing higher chain chitooligosaccharides.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:
Production of specific oligosaccharides by chemical methods is challenging due to the need to selectively protect and manipulate chemically quite similar saccharide donors and acceptors. For this reason, development of methods for enzymatic synthesis of oligosaccharides is desirable. The transglycosylation (TG) activity of family 18 chitinases is of special interest because there are numerous potential applications for chitooligosaccharides [i.e., homo- or hetero-oligomers of glucosamine (GlcN) and N-acetylated glucosamine (GlcNAc)], especially in the food, medical, and agriculture fields. The bioactivities of chitooligosaccharides (CHOS) are thought to depend on a combination of oligomer length, degree of acetylation and acetylation pattern (sequence). Transglycosylating chitinases have the potential to play a central role in the development of new well-defined mixtures of CHOS with new or improved biological activity, by coupling smaller CHOS building blocks to each other or to other functional groups.
Chemical processes have several disadvantages compared to bioprocesses because of large pollution and the products obtained through are chemical process are not unique products, difficult to control the reaction to obtain a specific products.