AMINOACID

Amino acid

Amino acids are biologically important organic compounds composed of amine and carboxylic acid functional groups, along with a side-chain specific to each amino acid. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, though other elements are found in the side-chains of certain amino acids. About 500 amino acids are known and can be classified in many ways. Structurally they can be classified according to the functional groups' locations as alpha-, beta-, gamma- or delta- amino acids; other categories relate to polarity, pH level, and side chain group type In the form of proteins, amino acids comprise the second largest component of ...

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amino acid

Noun

  1. Any organic compound containing both an amino and a carboxylic acid functional group.
  2. Any of the twenty naturally occurring α-amino acids (having the amino, and carboxylic acid groups on the same carbon atom), and a variety of side chains, that combine, via peptide bonds, to form proteins.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: amino acid
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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