AMINO ACIDS AND PROTEINS!!

REFLECTION #5

Amino acids and Proteins is a very long complex topic. Lets hope I can make this a little interesting as well as understandable. Class was good, cold but good. My lecturer made this stuff easy. He can really break down complex stuff into ABC. So lets get started….. 🙂

Amino acids is used to make proteins during protein synthesis. Amino acids is relatively small molecules. Glycine being the smallest. What makes amino acids different from each other is the R-group attached to the chiral carbon.

So just how important is amino acids to us???

Well there are 20 essential amino acids which makes proteins in our bodies that is needed from the food we eat, for growth and health. There are essential and non-essential amino acids, however both are needed and just as important. The essential amino acids will be the ones our body can not produce. For example: arginine, histidine, isoleucine and leucine. The non-essential amino acids will be the ones needed for making important proteins in the body, but the body can actually make these. Some example: alanine, asparagine, aspartic acid and cysteine.

NINHYDRIN REACTION

This is a test for amino acids. The ninhydrin and amino acid react to give a purple coloured imino derivative.

PROTEIN TEST: BIURET

Biuret is a light blue solution (containing copper 2+ ions) which changes purple when it reacts with a protein. This is because the copper ions reacts with the peptide bonds to form a complex.