Is amylose only present in starch? or are there any other biomolecules where amylose is the building block?
Indeed you are correct when stating that amylose can only be found in starch. Natural amyloses are not strictly linear, but rather a mixture of linear and slightly branched alpha-1-4-D-glucans. Natural amylose is isolated from starch by specific complexation of the amylose fraction with alcohols like n-butanol or amyl alcohol.
In addition you can make 'synthetic' amylose by using several enzymes:
1. Polymerization of D-glucose-1-phosphate (G-1-P) with phosphorylase, using maltohexaose (G6) or maltoheptaose (G7) as a primer. In this way, linear amylose with well-defined degree of polymerization (DP) can be obtained, governed by the molar ratio (G-1-P/Gn).
2. Conversion of sucrose by amylosucrase.
None of these approaches have been developed into an industrial scale. The approach adopted nowadays is to increase amylose content of plant starches by mutation or bioengineering. The most successful result up to now is a maize starch mutant with 90 % amylose.
I have included attachments for G-1-P polymerization (Banks), sucrose conversion (Potocki-Veronese) and 90 %-amylose maize starch (Sidebottom).
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