Amino Acids (Basic science review)

• Amino acids are the basic building blocks of proteins. (Proteins are polymers¹ and amino acids are the monomers.)
• An amino acid is composed of an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a side chain.
• The carboxyl group is what makes it an “acid”.
• It is the side chain that distinguishes the different amino acids.

• Proteins are made of 20 different amino acids in humans. There are a couple of additional amino acids that are found in proteins in other organisms.

• The sequence of amino acids in a protein is determined by the sequence of nucleic acids in the DNA that codes² for the protein.

Peptide bonds

• The amino acids in a protein are connected to each other by a peptide bond.

Footnotes

1. Polymers (Basic science review) ↩︎
2. Transcription, translation, & the genetic code (Basic science review) ↩︎