An organic compound containing an amino group (NH2), a carboxylic acid
group (COOH), and any of various side groups, especially any of the 20 compounds
that have the basic formula NH2CHRCOOH, and that link together by peptide bonds
to form proteins or that function as chemical messengers and as intermediates in
metabolism.
An organic compound containing an amino group (NH2), a
carboxylic acid group (COOH), and any of various side groups, especially any of
the 20 compounds that have the basic formula NH2CHRCOOH, and that
link together by peptide bonds to form proteins or that function as chemical
messengers and as intermediates in metabolism.
The general structure of an alpha amino acid.
Amino acids are molecules containing an amine
group, a carboxylic acid group and a side chain that varies between different
amino acids. These molecules contain the key elements of carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen. These molecules are particularly important in
biochemistry, where this term usually refers to alpha-amino acids with the
general formula H2NCHRCOOH, where R is an organic substituent. In an alpha amino
acid, the amino group is attached to the carbon atom immediately adjacent to the
carboxylate group (the α–carbon), but note that other types of amino acid exist
when the amino group is attached to another carbon atom (for example, in
gamma-amino acids such as gamma-amino-butyric acid the carbon atom to which the
amino group attaches is separated from the carboxylate group by two other carbon
atoms). The various alpha amino acids differ in which side chain (R group) is
attached to their alpha carbon and these can vary in size from just one hydrogen
atom in glycine or a methyl group in alanine, through to a large heterocyclic
group in tryptophan.
Amino acids are critical to life, and have many functions in metabolism. One
particularly important function is to serve as the building blocks of proteins,
which are just linear chains of amino acids. Every protein is chemically defined
by the order of amino acid residues, their primary structure and this, in turn,
determines their secondary structure (for example well-described features such
as alpha-helices or beta-pleated sheets), tertiary structure (the shape of the
individual protein, for example globular as in most enzymes or linear as in
collagen) or quaternary structure (the overall shape of the protein complex if
several protein monomers are grouped together, as in the hemoglobin complex,
which consists of four hemoglobin monomers held together by hydrogen bonds that
are capable of reacting together allosterically when one or more of them binds
another molecule for example oxygen). Just as the letters of the alphabet can be
combined to form an almost endless variety of words, amino acids can be linked
together in varying sequences to form a vast variety of proteins. Amino acids
are also important in many other biological molecules, for example they play
vital roles in coenzymes such as S-adenosylmethionine. Due to their central role
in biochemistry, amino acids are very important in nutrition and are commonly
used in food technology and industry. For example, monosodium glutamate is a
common flavor enhancer that gives foods the taste called umami. They are also
used in industry where applications include the production of biodegradable
plastics, drugs and chiral catalysts. -- by Wikipedia
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