AMINO ACIDS

• There are many amino acids are known in nature and in the laboratory, animal proteins are
almost exclusively constructed from 20 well-known amino acids. These 20 amino acids are
more appropriately referred to as stereospecific, L form etc…
• Each amino acid is having a hydrogen atom(H), amino group(NH2) group, a carboxylic acid
(COOH) group and a unique functional group (generalized as R) attached to the tetrahedral
a-carbon.
• a-carbon - According to standard chemical nomenclature, the atom next to the carbon atom
that bears the molecule’s main functional group is known as the a-carbon.
• In the case of the common amino acids, the main functional group is the carboxylic acid's
dissociable, acidic OH group
• By extension, the next further carbon from the main functional carbon is the b-carbon, and
so on.

Other than glycine, all the remaining amino acids have four different substituents attached to the a-
carbon, and because of this they can exist in two structurally different chiral or optically active
forms, a Dextrorotatory (d or +) form, and a laevorotatory ( l or −) form. The defining feature of
chiral molecules is that they are non-superimposable mirror images of each other. The l form, which
is that found in most human proteins and peptides, rotates plane-polarized light counter clockwise
while the d form rotates plane-polarized light in the clockwise direction. These two forms (d and l)
are also known as optical isomers or enantiomers