THE constituent of starch, usually called amylose, which consists of unbranched glucosidic chains, is hydrolysed by Î-amylase in step-wise fashion, two glucosidic residues being detached at a time.

Nor were the changes in protein structure particularly shocking or ... works by suppressing the activity of pea weevil α-amylase, an enzyme required by the insect to digest starch in pea cotyledons.