FIG 5.

Schematic overview of the extracellular α-glucan metabolism of L. acidophilus NCFM. The cell-attached pullulanase activity of LaPul13_14 mediates the debranching of preferentially smaller-branched oligomers that possibly are products of human or bacterial degradation of amylopectin, which is signified by a dashed line. The produced maltose and short maltooligosaccharides are taken up by one or more specific transporters and degraded intracellularly by the enzymes encoded by the malto-oligosaccharide utilization locus to produce β-glucose-1-phosphate and glucose, which enter glycolysis (26).