Maltose, also called malt sugar, is rarely found naturally in foods, while it is added to many products: it is often present in products commercialized as sugar free, in which it is referred as malt (it should be noted that maltose and sucrose have the same caloric content) and may be used as sweetener as well, with a sweetness equal to 33% of sucrose.
It consists of two units of glucose linked together by α-(1→4) glycosidic bond, then it is a disaccharide.
Maltose in germinating seeds
In seeds, during germination, it is synthesized in a reaction catalyzed by the enzyme diastase (amylase) that hydrolyzes starch to the disaccharide for the new plant. Diastase is used commercially as well to hydrolyze starch to maltose (malt) in the brewing of beer.
As vegetable diastase also pancreatic α-amylase (EC 3.2.1.1) is able to cleave starch into molecules of the disaccharide (in addition to maltose, maltotriose, a trisaccharide, and small oligosaccharides are released from its action on starch).
Enzymatic cleavage
The disaccharide, both coming from pancreatic α-amylase action on starch or added to commercialized foods, by the action of the multifunctional enzyme sucrase-isomaltase (see sucrose), undergoes the hydrolysis of the α-(1→4) glycosidic bond between the two molecules of glucose that form it releasing them (α-(1→4)-glicosidasic reaction).
References
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