Starch: As simple as A, B, C?

Starch is the main carbohydrate reserve in plants and an important part of our nutrition, Increasingly, it is being seen by industry as a useful raw material to include in foodstuffs and with which to produce other carbon-based polymers. Our understanding of starch biosynthesis and chemistry has advanced rapidly over the last few years, but our knowledge of how this translates into structure and thence into physicochemical properties and function is still lacking. Here, we have reviewed this information with an emphasis on genetics and physical properties, especially using data from the model crop, pea (Pisum sativum L.).