{
  "abstract": "The biotransformation of cellulose to starch (i.e., enzymatic rearrangement of beta-1,4- to alpha-1,4-glycosidic bonds) is an out-of-the-box solution to ensure food security and it would provide sufficient feedstock of industrial biomanufacturing and revolutionize agriculture. However, enzymatic cellulose hydrolysis remains costly because weight-based cellulase loading (e.g., 20 kg of cellulase per 1000 kg of cellulose) is two orders of magnitude of that of starch hydrolysis. Here we develop a chemo-enzymatic synthesis involving cellulose dissociation mediated by the reconstituted cellulose solvent followed by cell-free glycosidicbond rearrangement catalyzed by an advanced multi-enzyme molecular machine. Inspired by starch gelatinization, we dissociate microcrystalline cellulose to insoluble long-chain cellodextrins, which can be hydrolyzed completely by a 95% decrease in cellulase loading. This chemo-enzymatic synthesis achieves a cellulose-to-amylose yield of 96.9% even when an ultra-low cellulase loading was used, i.e., 1 kg of cellulase is enough to completely hydrolyze 1,000 kg of cellulose. The high-efficiency chemo-enzymatic synthesis would make sufficient synthetic starch from cellulose, feeding the world and energizing the bioeconomy.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "State Key Laboratory of Engineering Biology for Low-Carbon Manufacturing, Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 32 West 7th Avenue, Tianjin, China, 300308",
    "vitro Synthetic Biology Center",
    "Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences",
    "University of Chinese Academy of Sciences"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Jingting Wang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2,
        3
      ],
      "name": "Yi-Heng P. Job Zhang"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6azxrzzqeyq27.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15010375/v1",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "6azxrzzqeyq27",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010375/v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1312|Enzyme Catalysis and Immobilization"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221701456",
  "pdf_url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/pdf/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010375/v1",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-13",
  "publisher": "American Chemical Society (ACS)",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6azxrzzqeyq27.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:24Z",
      "native_id": "10.26434/chemrxiv.15010375",
      "source": "chemrxiv",
      "url": "https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15010375/v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biochemistry",
      "origin": "openalex:1312|Enzyme Catalysis and Immobilization",
      "subfield": "molecular-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Chemo-Enzymatic Synthesis of Starch from Cellulose",
  "title_text": "Chemo-Enzymatic Synthesis of Starch from Cellulose",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6azxrzzqeyq27",
  "venue": "ChemRxiv",
  "versions": []
}