amino acid
/əˌmiːnəʊ ˈasɪd
/noun Biochemistry
A simple organic compound containing both a carboxyl (—COOH) and an amino (—NH2) group: [as modifier]: the amino-acid sequence of a protein...
- Two known enzymes catabolize the essential amino acid tryptophan in mammals.
- To tackle this problem a variety of approaches have been developed to predict the three-dimensional structure of a protein given its amino-acid sequence.
- The simplest amino acid is glycine which contains a hydrogen atom as its side group.
Amino acids occur naturally in plant and animal tissues and form the basic constituents of proteins. There are about twenty common amino acids, of which the simplest is glycine (H2NCH2COOH).