Final answer:
Amylose and amylopectin are two different forms of starch. Amylose is unbranched and composed of chains of glucose monomers connected by 1,4 glycosidic linkages. Amylopectin, on the other hand, is branched and composed of chains of glucose monomers connected by both 1,4 and 1,6 glycosidic linkages.
Step-by-step explanation:
Amylose and amylopectin are two different forms of starch. Amylose is composed of unbranched chains of glucose monomers connected by a 1,4 glycosidic linkages. On the other hand, amylopectin is composed of branched chains of glucose monomers connected by a 1,4 and a 1,6 glycosidic linkages. Because of these differences in the way the subunits are joined, the glucose chains have a helical structure in both amylose and amylopectin.
An important difference between the two is the level of branching. Amylose is unbranched, while amylopectin has occasional branching due to the presence of 1,6-glycosidic bonds. This branching allows amylopectin to store more glucose units per molecule than amylose. Furthermore, glycogen, which is found in animals, is structurally more similar to amylopectin. Both glycogen and amylopectin have highly branched structures, but glycogen is even more branched than amylopectin.