Questions tagged [amino-acids]
Amino-acids are organic acids with an amino group in the alpha position (alpha-acids). They are the structural units of proteins and involved in many biochemical pathways.
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Using exogenous genes to reduce the set of essential amino acids?
Various organisms have sets of essential amino acids that they cannot synthesize themselves, but rather that they must obtain from food. Humans have 9 of these amino acids. However, obviously certain ...
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Amino acids in human cancer cells expose dextrorotation?
I would like to know if the amino acids in the human cancer cells are dextrorotatory or levorotatory.
I mean the majority of them.
They expose levorotation just like the amino acids in the normal ...
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If human proteins are synthesized from only 20 different amino acids, then how can there be such variety of proteins in human cells?
I know that human proteins are synthesized using only 20 different amino acids. However, how can there be thousands of different proteins in human cells, if we only use 20 amino acids to make them?
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Are alpha-ketoglutarate and glutamate involved in all transamination reactions?
Is it true that for all biochemical transamination reactions, that alpha-ketoglutarate and glutamate serve as the amino group acceptor and donor, respectively?
If this is true, then is it safe to ...
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Question about DNP derivatives of amino acids (specifically epsilon-DNP-lysine)
I have a pretty basic biochemistry question but am having trouble finding the answer to it:
Normally, 1-Fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene (DNFB) reacts with just the amino terminus of amino acids. However, ...
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Where can you find the quantities of each amino acid of a particular protein or food?
Taking a potato as an example. If I wanted to know how much µg or % of each of it's amino acids there are in 1 gram of pure potato protein, where can I find this information?
Is there a freely ...
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Why do asparagine and glutamine have two different abbreviations? [closed]
I'm looking at amino acid abbreviations and on every site I visit, asparagine and glutamine have two different abbreviations. Is there a reason for this? Do they represent different forms of the amino ...
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Why would the citrulline content of the watermelon be so high?
Citrulline is a non-proteinogenic amino acid (that is, citrulline is an amino acid that is not coded for in mRNA), and it is an important metabolic intermediate in the Urea Cycle. The Urea Cycle is ...
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Is it possible to grow E. coli K12 with algal amino acids as the sole carbon source?
Instead of glucose or glycerol, is it possible for E coli to grow on an amino acid mixture as the sole carbon source and, if so, what should the concentration be?
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On which amino-acids residue is the SDS acting on?
I would like to know exactly what is the mechanisme of the SDS, and I would like to know on which amino-acids residue the SDS is acting on.
Can you help me please ?
Thank you in advance !
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Is Roundup toxic?
Roundup, as we all know, is a herbicide that kills weeds. It does this by preventing the production of amino acids in plants. One of these amino acids is tyrosine. Tyrosine is a nonessential amino ...
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What are 'acid stable' amino acids?
I tend to see terms amino acid, acid stable amino acid, and free amino acids used often in ...
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What signals a ribosome to stop production when the cell is out of available amino acids?
In the production of a protein molecule, there have to be a ready supply of free-floating amino acids. When a given codon for adjoining, say, serine comes up, how are the serine molecules found out of ...
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What is the last heavy atom of an amino acid?
I'm a electrical engineer and I'm learning about bioinformatics. I was reading this paper that uses the last heavy atom to search for active sites of a protein but what would be a heavy atom? Is it ...
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Properties that can be derived from amino acid sequences [closed]
What are the properties that can be derived from an amino acid sequence apart from those mentioned in the website? In the mentioned website, the properties that can be calculated from amino acid ...
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Why are VAL, MET and ALA substitutions commonly used for protein behaviour and function studies?
I have seen that amino acids are commonly replaced with VAL, MET or ALA to study the effects of these specific substitutions. Why are these specific amino acids used in particular, what are the ...
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Determining the appropriate bioconjugate
I'm thinking of crosslinking two proteins. The crystallographic nature of the interaction and the binding motif for each molecule is know. The paper says the intermolecular contacts (over 50; van der ...
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Consequence of Plants as Incomplete Protein Source
Some years ago, in a 1000~ level biology course we learned that the DNA essentially encodes formulas for creating proteins from amino acids. While the human body can synthesize many many amino acids, ...
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D/L configuration for amino acids
Why would this be "L-cysteine"? This is taken from the answer key for my biochem final.
From what I understand if the -NH3(+) is on the left then the alpha-amino acid is in the L-configuration.
Am ...
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Is cysteine deficiency possible?
Is there such a thing as cysteine deficiency in humans or other mammals?
What effects would such a deficiency have?
As I understand it, most cysteine for humans comes from dietary sources, though it ...
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Is there a cellular mechanism that detects Ribosomal damage?
What kinds of options, if any, do cells (Eukary and Prokary) have for detecting, and repairing damage in Ribosomes (of all types)? I am curious as to
what happens when a cell sustains damage of some ...
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Amino acid compatibility
The (human) genetic code encodes 20 amino acids. They form a protein using peptide bonds. Each amino acid has a carboxyl group (COOH) and an amino group (NH2) that can potentially form a peptide bond. ...
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Edman method to identify peptides with Phenylisothiocyanate (PTH)
We all know that in this method the PTH reacts with the first amino acid (aa) from the N-terminal to the peptide and separates from it giving PTH-aa so that we can know the amino acids sequence in the ...
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What is the explanation for the smaller number of tRNA than codons?
Translation, or decoding, of the four-nucleotide language of DNA and
mRNA into the 20–amino acid language of proteins requires tRNAs and
enzymes called aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. To participate ...
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Is consuming proteins different vs. consuming amino-acids and how?
Yesterday I had a discussion with a friend. He said that consuming proteins and amino-acids is different. He said that those who grow muscles would agree on that. I wanted to argue against that ...
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Protein Design - Target Structure Specification
I'm curious about how protein structures are defined in general, but in particular, I'm wondering how a target structure can be specified without knowing the amino acid sequence.
For example, in ...
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Is there a biological environment that we can we assume glutamate exists as glutamic acid?
In the body we almost always assume that glutamate exists as glutamate rather than glutamic acid. It is so commonly glutamate yet glutamic acid and glutamate share the abbreviations of Glu and E. From ...
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How does beta branching stop alpha helices from forming?
I am told that beta branching interferes with alpha helix formation.
Problem is that I don't see how beta branching has anything to do with alpha-helix formation. Beta-branches are on the outside of ...
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Thermodynamics of Forming Peptide Bonds
Which of the following shows the correct changes in thermodynamic properties for a chemical reaction in which amino acids are linked to form a protein?
A) +ΔH, +ΔS, +ΔG
B) +ΔH, -ΔS, -ΔG
C) +ΔH, -ΔS, +...
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How many different kinds of polypeptides, each composed of 12 amino acids, could be synthesized using the 20 common amino acids?
How many different kinds of polypeptides, each composed of 12 amino acids, could be synthesized using the 20 common amino acids?
The book's answer is $20^{12}$.
However, I disagree. This result ...
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Why is leucine amino acid used the most in proteins and tryptophan the least?
The amino acid leucine, is used in proteins more than others. Leucine with 9.1 percent (its average in more than 1.150 different proteins) is used most and tryptophan with 1.4 percent is used less ...
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Are There Rules for How Proteins Are Formed?
Proteins are formed by stringing together different amino acids. Different amino acids have different properties (such as being attracted to or repelled by water, positively or negatively charged, ...
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Is there any evolutionary advantage of selection of L-amino acid over D-amino acid?
After listening to a scientific talk, I had this question that why in the natural selection process, are the L-amino acids selected over the D- form. However, we still we produce D-amino acids; ...
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Which three functional groups are found in the general structure of amino acids? [closed]
Yes, I know, not two, but THREE.
EDIT: Yes, sorry but I did quite a bit of research, searching my notes and textbook for the answer, but all I could find was TWO functional groups as a opposed to the ...
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How are amino acids neutral at physiological pH?
Amino acids with non‐ionizable side chains are zwitterions when they are at physiological pH, pH 7.4. This is what my book says. But I do not understand why. The Pka for a carboxyl group is around 3 ...
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Hormones and body mass
I was wondering how some animals (bulls, elephants etc.) become so large by only eating grass or plant based material and why some humans can build large amounts of muscle and mass without a proper ...
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bacterial cell wall degradation in humans
can human degrade the D-amino acid present in bacterial cell wall, I'm confused about it i have read somewhere that human can do so.If yes than why we need antibiotic to kill bacteria???If it is not ...
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What does the term 'modified residue position' in phosphorylation mean?
Does it mean the position of the amino acid in the protein sequence, or something else?
For example, I came across the phrase "S 368 phosphoryation" where S is the modified residue and 368 is the ...
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Specificity of Protein Kinases in Signaling Pathways..?
In most of the signaling pathways the activated receptor when activates Protein Kinase through the action of secondary messenger, then these protein kinases almost always phosphorylate on the specific ...
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Understanding the Amino Acids
I'm having little trouble studying general relativity or quantum field theory, but remembering all the amino acids and being able to think about them is something that's completely, utterly and ...
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Converting Ensembl Compara gene tree DNA alignment to corresponding amino acid alignment
I have Ensembl compara gene tree alignments (Compara.gene_trees.57.fasta.gz downloaded from ftp://ftp.ensembl.org/pub/release-57/emf/ensembl-compara/homologies/) in nucleotide format. According to ...
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What are the functions of disulphide bonds?
What are the functions of disulphide bonds between amino acids in proteins or peptides?
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Why do three nucleotides code for one amino acid? Why not 5 nucleotides? [duplicate]
We all know why there are 3-base codons, and why there aren't any 2-base codons. But why is there not a 4-base a 5-base codon?
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Histidine - why essential for children?
Why is histidine an essential amino acid for children but not for adults ? What changes in the body occur which lead to the formation of histidine in adults but not in children ? What causes these ...
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Whole genome amino acid composition tool?
I'm interested in a statistical tool to get bacterial codon usage at genomic level. Ideally, the tool should be flexible to analyse hundreds of bacterial genomes.
I've looked in MeSH terms database ...
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Why don't amino acids get linked in the functional groups of acidic and basic amino acids?
There are 'acidic' and 'basic' amino acids like aspartate and histidine.
When protein is synthesized with those amino acids, what ensures that the to-be-assembled amino acids will not bond to the ...
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What is the recommended PPM when foliar feeding L-amino acids
It is said that L-amino acids such as histidine, methionine, aspartic acid, glutamic acid, asparagine and glutamine can revert plant stomata closure, increase quality of fruits and assist maturity. It ...
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Why are Taurine and Arginine essential components of the feline diet?
Taurine and arginine play a key role in the feline diet but I am unaware as to where exactly they fit in.
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Can proteins move outside cells?
I am trying to learn about basic cell biology, and have what is probably an extremely simple question.
So this is how I understand it so far:
Proteins are made from amino acids. This process is ...
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Histidine aromaticity
I understand that the imidazole ring in histidine is aromatic. I also realize that it retains its aromaticity when protonated.
I am wondering why this is not mentioned at all in basic text books such ...
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