Some starch-degrading enzymes accommodate carbohydrates at sites situ-ated at a certain distance from the active site. In the crystal structure of barleya-amylase 1, oligosaccharide is thus bound to the ‘sugar tongs’ site. This site on the non-catalytic domain C in the C-terminal part of the mole-cule contains a key residue, Tyr380, which has numerous contacts with the oligosaccharide.