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Chitin, an insoluble linear polymer of &#946;-1,4-<i>N</i>-acetyl-<span style="font-variant: small-caps;">d</span>-glucosamine (GlcNAc; A), can be converted to chitosan, a soluble heteropolymer of GlcNAc and <span style="font-variant: small-caps;">d</span>-glucosamine (GlcN; D) residues, by partial deacetylation. In nature, deacetylation of chitin is catalyzed by enzymes called chitin deacetylases (CDA) and it has been proposed that CDAs could be used to produce chitosan. In this work, we show that CDAs can remove up to approximately 10% of <i>N</i>-acetyl groups from two different (&#945; and &#946;) chitin nanofibers, but cannot produce chitosan.