MEET THE AMINO ACIDS 

protein synthesis

You can see a table of amino acid structures at UC Davis

or you can look at Flick Coleman's table of structures
sidechain interactions

Electrostatic and Lipophilic examples

glycine the smallest allows the most freedom of rotation			electrostatic surface lipophilic surface
asparagine polar			electrostatic surface lipophilic surface
phenylalanine nonpolar aromatic large			electrostatic surface lipophilic surface
aspartate negatively charged pK~4			electrostatic surface lipophilic surface
lysine positively charged pK~9.5			electrostatic surface lipophilic surface

A Venn Diagram of the different ways of classifying amino acids
For  titrations select Amino Acid Titration Behavior from the table of contents.

you can test your knowledge of amino acids with this Quiz

To explore phi & psi angles select An Animated Look at Phi and Psi Angles

 anatomy of amino acids

 

• Paul Reisberg preisberg@wellesley.edu
• Chemistry Department
• Date Created: January 22, 1998
• Last Modified: February 4, 1999
• Expires: August 30, 2000