Amino Acids

Presented By : Ruwanthika
Hashini
Dilumi
Biochemistry
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Basic Components which make up
living things

• Carbohydrates
• Lipids
• Proteins
• Nucleic acids

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Structure of Amino acid
• All amino acids have the same basic structure.
• Basic structure of amino acids have a central carbon, which is known as alpha
carbon.
• It contains 4 type of groups. Carboxyl group, Amino Group, R group (side chain),
and H atom.

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Bonds Between Amino acids

• All amino acids are linked together by peptide

bonds.
• When a peptide bond is formed between two amino
acids it called as dipeptide,
• When numerous amino acids joined by peptide
bonds called as polypeptides
H2O

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Classification of amino acids
• There are around 180-200 amino acids that naturally exist in
nature.
• However, only 20 of these are used to make polypeptides in
living organisms.
• These 20 amino acids classified into 5 category using chemical
properties.

 Non-polar or Hydrophobic R group

 Polar or Hydrophilic R group
 Aromatic amino acids
 Amino acids with positively charge R group
 Amino acids with negatively charge R group

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 Non-polar or Hydrophobic R group
• The R – group in this category of amino acids is
hydrocarbon in nature.
• And contain aliphatic R – groups.

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Polar or Hydrophilic R group
• The R – group of these amino acids are more soluble in
water .
• These amino acids are high polarity molecules because
they contains hydroxyl (OH) group or sulfur hydride
group.

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 Aromatic amino acids
• Aromatic amino acids all have aromatic
rings in their side chain.

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Amino acids with positively and negatively charge R group
• Among the 20 common amino acids, five have a
side chain which can be charged.
• At pH 7 two are negative. Aspartic acid and
glutamic acid
• And three are positively charged. Lysine,
Arginine, Histidine.

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How were these 20 amino acids
chosen?

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• Other amino acids are also possible candidates of making
proteins but How and why nature chose these 20 are still
in speculation.
• The scientists used computers to estimate the
fundamental properties of the 20 amino acids life uses,
such as size, charge and hydrophilicity, or the extent to
which the molecules are attracted to water.
• Those are the factors that affect in making proteins.
• If other amino acids were used, life as we know today;
would’ve been different.

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•Researchers considered a likely pool of possible amino acids from which
these 20 were selected.
•They started from the meteorite which was found in Murchison, victoria in
Australia in September 1969.
•Scientists detected hydrogen cyanide and methanimine, two carbon
compounds that can combine with water to make the amino acid glycine.
•Glycine was also found in samples of comet wild 2 returned by NASA’s
stardust spacecraft.
•Evidence such as these, suggest that amino acids are ET and we are in fact
made of stardust.
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The Allende meteorite is a carbonaceous chondrite, a
rare type of meteorite that makes up only about 4
percent of known meteorites. The Allende meteorite
contains components that are more than 4.5 billion years
old, making the rock a snapshot of the conditions
present in the earliest days of the solar system.
Comet Wild 2 imaged just after flyby. The
image highlights the remarkably rugged
surface of the comet, which in close-up
stereo views shows hardened impact
craters, cliffs, and mesas in the
landscape. 
Credit: NASA/JPL  13
How do plants and animals get amino
acids ?

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• There are two types of amino acids.
 Essential amino acids
 Non-essential amino acids

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Non essential amino acids
• These are synthesized from alphibolic intermediates.
• That can be synthesized in mammals from common
intermediates.
• Amino acid transaminase ,glutamate dehydrogenase
and glutamine synthetase play a central role in the
synthesize .

Essential amino acids

• these can only be synthesized in plant and
microorganisms.
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• Plants and microorganisms can synthesize
amino acids from basic elements.
• they get c, o from air and H from water.

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 How does this happen……. ?

• The N source is glutamate.

• It is done via transamination
• Amino acids are from α - keto acids

• Amino Acids1+α-keto acid2 α-keto acid1+amino acid2

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How are proteins made from amino acids ?

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 TRANSCRIPTION

• RNA polymerase attaches to the DNA.

• Then unwinds and unzips it.
• One strand of DNA in a gene gets transcribed.
• RNA polymerase binds the RNA nucleotides together to form
mRNA.
• This mRNA is complementary to the template strand.
• Then it attaches to the ribosome.
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 TRANSLATION

• mRNA gets attached to a ribosome.

• Ribosome reads each codon of mRNA directs tRNA to bring the
specified amino acid.
• Ribosome attaches one amino acid to another.
• Ribosome reaches the end of mRNA strand and then translation
completes.
• Newly made protein is released.

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 What can go wrong?
Synthesis of a functional protein from a genetic code is
strikingly error prone.
Some of these errors include:

1. Amino acid misincorporations

2. Transcription errors
3. Aberrant splicing
4. Premature termination etc.

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 How does this happen ?

• Every single codon codes for a specific amino

acid.
• When even a single nucleotide gets altered,
the amino acid they code for is changed.
• The altered amino acid may have different R
groups which can cause the protein to fold
incorrectly, producing a defect protein.
• And this is just during transcription.
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• THESE ARE ALL POSSIBLE WAYS OF FORMING A DEFECT PROTEIN.

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• These errors are most likely to happen during translation,
and can result in,
1. Protein misfolfing
2. Aggregation
3. Cell death etc.
• Protein misfolding can result in neurogenerative diseases
and misincorporation of amino acids may cause multiple
sclerosis and ALS.
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Examples of diseases caused by genetic
mutations are:

1. Cystic fibrosis
2. Sickle cell anemia
3. Turner syndrome
4. Types of cancers.

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 New research and treatments
•
Newest research found out that blocking the cancer cell’s
supply of the amino acid glutamine, completely stopped
the cell from growing.

• The mechanism is complex, but the results were 96%

positive.

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Thank You !

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