| This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects: | | | [edit] non-standard aas There is a problem in the section "non-standard amino acids": If the term "standard" applies to 22 aa's then it includes serenocysteine and pyrrolysine. The section needs to be re-written. I am tempted to say standard=20 aa's, as I believe this is still the common usage of this ill-defined term. Akita86 (talk) 21:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC) - I have to second this. It was a bit disconcerting to have read this article before and seen twenty(20) standard amino acids, then a reference to the other two(2) aa's, then it has become twenty-two(22). This has gone further, to someone editing the article to have twenty-four standard aa's. I will assume the 'standard' term comes from those used by the ribosome to produce a polypeptide/protein. Note: the twenty(20) is reinforced by the named list which only has 20 aa's. 206.116.0.55 (talk) 05:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
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- This problem still exists. It is rather strange to see selenocysteine and pyrrolysine listed as standard in one paragraph and as non-standard in the next. The problem rests on whether standard means "naturally occurring in proteins" or "directly encoded by DNA"; the first includes these two, the second excludes them. If there is no objection in the next week or so I will change the article to be consistent. Khajidha (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Hypusine Sorry but Wikipedia doesn't allow me to add changes unless I'm a registered user. Could someone add hypusine as an amino acid originating from postranslational modification of initiation factor 5? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.224.252.10 (talk) 13:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC) - Thank you. Added. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
[edit] GA-review This was an easy promotion - great job. I really had no comments although I do see that this project is still evolving and being improved. I would suggest a peer review in a couple of months followed by an attempt for Featured article status.Peter Rehse 06:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC) [edit] Dur I reverts lots. Didn't see that Crazycomputers had already caught the vandalism when I reverted. Sorry. XD --AgentCDE 17:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC) [edit] Proline general formula NH2CHRCOOH IANABC (I Am Not A BioChemist) but the formula doesn't fit for proline with its secondary amine ... should it be changed? Daen 03:07, 25 March 2007 (UTC) - No. Proline's amine group cyclizes on the alpha carbon, true, but the general formula still holds if you think of one of nitrogen's hydrogens plus the rest of the ring as the R-group. --Cless Alvein 08:00, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
- That general formula is not valid for proline. You can think of the R group in various ways, but proline simply doesn't have the NH2 that appears in the "general" formula. I'll add this as a footnote, since this level of detail could detract from the conciseness of the introduction. --Itub 08:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Other Amino Acids The article seems to be focused on "Life's Building Blocks". But what about the other amino acids? How many amino acids have been discovered? Besides life, what else builds, delivers, or uses amino acids? WynnSmith 19:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC) - I can understand your first point, but what exactly do you expect to 'build' amino acids, or use them, besides life? They would be created by e.g. a lightning storm in the 'primordial soup' environment, but besides life, they certainly aren't going to be 'utilized' by anything else. Richard001 01:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
- In fact, there are many, many amino acids beyond those encoded by DNA, most of which are generated by post-translational processing of the standard 20 but some that arise from more esoteric biosynthetic processes. And many other amino acids are synthetic that have been incorporated into proteins or used for various purposes related to engineered enzymes.
The branched chain amino acid paragraph is a little unusual - the aliphatic/hydrocarbon side chains are often just categorized as aliphatic side chains (Leu, Val, Ile). I've almost always heard branched amino acids used to refer to the beta-branched amino acids, which include Ile, Thr, and Val. This is a useful category because the branching affects the geometry of the protein backbone immediately surrounding the amino acids, and thus the protein structure. I don't know the history of the page - is there a reason that the branched chain aliphatic category was given precedence? Reesei 19:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC) [edit] Genetic code Perhaps there should be a little mention that many codons code for the same amino acid, and its implication for mutations? This area seems fairly underdeveloped, in fact the genetic code is only mentioned a couple of times and not in any detail. Richard001 06:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC) You can mention that DNA contains instructions for the construction of protein from amino acids.--71.247.34.248 (talk) 02:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC) - The article presently states:
- "Twenty standard amino acids are used by cells in protein biosynthesis, and these are specified by the general genetic code."
- Your idea is reasonable but it's too casually worded to the point of being misleading. It's only the sequence that's specified by the DNA, not folding or post-translational modification info (i.e., all the things that make a protein actually functional). DMacks (talk) 03:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Tyrosine polar/non-polar It seems there have been a few edits back and forth mentioning Tyrosine as non-polar or polar. As far as I am aware, Tyrosine is considered a polar amino acid because of the hydroxyl group. One may also check the much-cited Venn-diagram found at EMBL [1](which was a source for a figure I remember from an advanced-level protein engineering class I took a few years ago). Any comments? Antorjal 03:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC) - I'll have a look at Chrighton Proteins when I get into work tomorrow. However, if you look at the hydropathy index in the table, it is about as polar as proline, which is also labelled as "non-polar". Tim Vickers 03:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
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- With that I will agree with you 100%. Tyrosine was always one of the strange cases (along with good old tryptophan), where due to convention the amino acid was considered hydrophobic and polar. Go figure! In any case I'll go through "Fersht" tomorrow as well. :-) Have a nice night.Antorjal 03:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
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- It is my understanding that Tyrosine is part of the grouping - polar uncharged. Because it's side chain amino acid has a pKr of 10.46, it has the possibility to become polar/charged in rare but possible cases of physiological pH, whereas proline and tryptophan have negligible pKr values for their side change. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Niubrad (talk • contribs) 02:47, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
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- According to my sources, the polar effect of the hydroxyl group is "overshadowed" by the non-polar nature of the benzene group. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.169.208 (talk) 03:36, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
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- It is mostly non-polar, with a split between non-plar and polar surface area (in a polypeptide) of 144 to 43, this compares to tryptophan with a 190 to 27. This data is cited in Crighton but comes from PMID 3681970 Tim Vickers (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Biological importance-Tyrosine/Tryptophan Why do all biological proteins contain Tyrosine and Tryptophan?? Any specific reason?? - Not as far as I know, the chances of any string of amino acids not containing two of the twenty amino acids is pretty small, even if the sequence is just random. Collagen contains only a few Y/W residues and there might be some proteins with none, but I would expect them to be pretty rare. Tim Vickers 06:46, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
- To add to Tim Vickers's excellent response, tyrosine is a lot more common that tryptophan, but even so, (depending on the species) more than 90% of proteins have at least one W.Antorjal 12:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Essential i have a health book that says there are nine essential and 11 nonessential amino acids Soyseñorsnibbles 23:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC) - This seems surprisingly ill-defined and controversial. I've added a range of references. Tim Vickers 02:39, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Cysteine Presentation College,There is one querry that i have . Cystein , as an amino acid ... is it Polar ? I have a text book by Richard Kent which argues thet it is Non Polar ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.58.4.66 (talk) 04:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC) - It is non-polar when protonated but polar when ionised. Tim Vickers 18:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
- No, its not polar in its non-ionised form. S-H and C-H bond are pretty similar. Narayanese (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Side chain polarity I am going to have to strongly disagree with the assertion that the side chain of tyrosine is nonpolar. Although it can base stack and have hydrophobic interactions with its electrons above and below the plane of the aromatic ring, there is no conceivable way that you can tell me that it is nonpolar with the conspicuous hydrogen bonding phenolic oxygen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.242.170.102 (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC) - This is one on the boundary, it has both polar and nonpolar characteristics and does not easily fit into a black/white classification. Tim Vickers 18:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
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- Its both. The term is "amphipathic" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.143.145 (talk) 07:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Origins and evolution This article could benefit from a section on the origins and evolution of amino acids. I'm thinking in particular of the Miller-Urey experiment and the question of handedness.[2] -- Beland (talk) 01:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC) [edit] Comment removed from article text "I hate how semi-complicated things like this could be explained a lot easier if people didn't resort to overly complicated words." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.233.39.21 (talk) [edit] SVG version of Protein-primary-structure.png ? I went to the source of this image to try and get a higher res version for a paper I'm writing. I downloaded the pdf there, opened it in Inkscape and saved it as an svg. Unfortunately, the image got a bit messed up as you can see here. (It looks ok on its own page but a shrunken version on the article page looks hideous.) It would seem that an svg image would be preferable to a png for an image like this one, especially given the low resolution of the png. I have very little experience with images on Wikipedia. I think that if someone who knew what they were doing would look at the picture, they could make it work. 15:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdanziger (talk • contribs) - Couldn't get the svg to work either. But it does work to make it bigger (transform->scale) and then export as bitmap. Narayanese (talk) 17:38, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
[edit] GA Reassessment - This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Amino acid/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.
This article needs more references to keep its good article status. Information that completely lack inline citations include: - The lead for the "Overview" section
- The entire "Functions in proteins" section
- The first two paragraphs of the "General structure" section
- The second bullet point of the " Isomerism" section
- The lead of the " Reactions" section
- The entire " Zwitterions" section
Please keep me updated on the progress on this page. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 18:26, 25 October 2008 (UTC) - Because these issues have remained unresolved, the article has been reassessed. Gary King (talk) 18:16, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I've added references. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC) [edit] Essential amino acids? !! 8 Amino Acids or 9 ?? The article states that there are only 8 animo acids that the body does not produce. However, a Cornell article discussing the properties of cow milk, states that there are nine essential amino acids that the human body does not produce, (milk providing all 9). http://www.milkfacts.info/Milk%20Composition/Protein.htm Which is correct? Thank you for your attention. abubasir, Seoul South Korea - See this paper for a discussion of the terms "essential" and "non-essential" and this paper for a relatively recent review on the topic. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:26, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This article mentions 8 essential amino acids then later give mneumonics for remembering the 10 amino acids. Please consider editing this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.193.67.28 (talk) 21:57, 28 February 2009 (UTC) - Even worse: one of the three mnemonics has 11 words! But the whole problem is different ideas of "essential when?". As mentioned in the previous sentences, it's age-dependent, and 8 or 10 are both reasonable counts for the number of essential ones. Reworded to avoid looking so silly. DMacks (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Histidine Charge Could anyone explain why histidine is listed as charged at neutral pH in the data table? I assume it's not a mistake, but my understanding is that it's non-charged. - The side-chain imidazole ring has a pKa of about 6, so at pH 7 it will be partially ionized. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:08, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Amino Acids . animation http://francoislafontaine.com/story/moment/amino255.html [edit] GA Reassessment - This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Amino acid/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.
- KEPT--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, TimVickers (talk · contribs), DMacks (talk · contribs), Narayanese (talk · contribs), Edgar181 (talk · contribs)--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:56, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- I am reviewing this article as part of GA Sweeps. In order for this article to retain its WP:GA rating, there are several issues that will need to be addressed. The following is a list of my initial concerns:
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- I can't see any way of describing molecular images like these in words. I've had a go with the lead image, but this seems a pretty useless exercise. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
- So basically, your response is "Too hell with all blind people", if I am understanding you correctly.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 00:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- No, you misunderstand me completely. It might be useful to tell you that I'm partially sighted myself. You would be very welcome to improve the alt text of the lead image or produce a better summary of this figure, but I'm not sure if describing molecular structures in this way is actually useful to a blind reader. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Agreed - surely the description can't really add all that much information to the article...and if it does, shouldn't that info be in the article? I would argue otherwise if they were anything but diagrams. Master gopher (talk) 07:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Currently, the only place where WP:ALT is required to my knowledge is at WP:FAC. I apologize if attempting to raise the image quality of this article toward the level of featured articles is something undesirable to the editors of this page. I have completed 32 GA Sweeps reviews and have for the last ten or so been requesting WP:ALT. No group of editors that was interested in keeping a GA rating has said that they do not want to attempt to raise the quality of their article in this way before. As an example, I will say what a reasonable alt text would be for the main image: This is a molecular diagram of atoms represented by circles and bonds represented straight lines. This diagram has a purple circle with an "N" in the middle on the left with two light blue "H" circles stemming from it. It is linked on the right to a grey "C" circle with a light blue "H" circle above and and a white with black border "R" square below. To the right of this is another grey "C" circle with a double line link to a red "O" circle below and a single line link red "O" circle above that has its own light blue "H" circle linked even further above it.
- I have not studied chemistry in 25 years, but that would help me if I had gone blind in those last 25 years. Is this something that is beyond this group of editors.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 The two optical isomers of alanine, D-Alanine and L-Alanine We are just unconvinced that that your description above would add anything useful to the article. For another example, what description could you produce of the optical isomerism image to the left? The fact that these are mirror images of each other belongs in the text, not an image caption. You can add this some kind of sphere-by-sphere description to this if you wish, but really I don't think it will increase anybody's understanding of the topic.. Tim Vickers (talk) 14:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC) - I think you are misunderstanding WP:ALT. This is what a blind person sees instead of the image. Right now he can only read an image caption but can not envision the image. "This is a molecular diagram of atoms represented by circles and bonds represented straight lines. This diagram has a purple circle with an "N" in the middle on the left with two light blue "H" circles stemming from it. It is linked on the right to a grey "C" circle with a light blue "H" circle above and and a white with black border "R" square below. To the right of this is another grey "C" circle with a double line link to a red "O" circle below and a single line link red "O" circle above that has its own light blue "H" circle linked even further above it." is more helpful to a blind person than nothing. As for your example image it would help a blind person to read "This is a dynamic image with two mirror image molecules depicted by grey, red, white, and blue spheres rotating around a central axis." That is the last one I am going to do and I am not going to pass this article if you continue to attempt to ignore the needs of the blind.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
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- The issue of alt-text was raised in Wikipedia talk:Good article criteria just last month, where there was clearly no consensus to have that be part of GA standards (and it's not mentioned in the explicit list of image issues on WP:GACR).. Please don't hold a GA nom to standards other than those of GA or conflate it with other quality issues (such as FA). GA-status isn't the end of editing or improvement, it's just a "this meets WP:GACR" stamp--please raise other issues in a section other than the GA review. DMacks (talk) 14:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- I have never met a group of editors who said that it is too troublesome for me to add stuff like "This is a dynamic image with two mirror image molecules depicted by grey, red, white, and blue spheres rotating around a central axis." to my images and that there is even debate that gives me an out not to help the blind people understand the article's images. I would prefer not to pass an article that refuses to make such simple changes, but yes if you want to "hide" behind the GA talk page debate, I probably would be overruled for delisting solely on that basis. There is just no reason not to add stuff like this for the blind.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Exactly. It's an important accessibility issue that should be raised and addressed outside the scope of GAR. DMacks (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Perhaps it would solve the problem if, instead of just describing the images as collections of spheres and lines of various colors (which is totally uninformative) we instead use the alt text to describe the important point that the reader would take from the image if they could examine it? I've had a go at this approach in the section on "Occurrence and functions in biochemistry". Tim Vickers (talk) 17:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
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- I want to be clear that I don't think we shouldn't have alt-text in this article; I'm just not sure how to make it helpful to the blind. Perhaps it would be more useful to describe the structure of the molecule depicted rather than describing the diagram itself? E.g. for the very first image: "This image depicts the typical structure of an amino acid, consisting of a central carbon atom with four bonds: one to the functional group, one to a hydrogen atom, one to the amino group and one to the carboxyl group". This might be better as it focuses on the information in the image, whereas saying that (for example) 'the amino group is on the left' doesn't really give useful information, it just says how that particular diagram was drawn. Thoughts? Master gopher (talk) 10:03, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
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- That's very true. A blind reader has no use or need for information about colors, orientation or if something is rotating or not - that kind of information is irrelevant. As you say alt text might be useful if it says what the diagram is meant to illustrate, rather than describing an image line by line, sphere by sphere. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- I agree with Master gopher and Tim Vickers: the point is to convey to the visually impaired reader the gist of the image: what a sighted reader takes away from that image, info that is not already conveyed by the caption or by adjacent text. For Image:AminoAcidball.svg the current alt text is pretty good, but I have two suggestions to improve it. First, the phrase "This image depicts the typical structure of an amino acid, consisting of" repeats the caption and should be removed. Second, the current alt text assumes that the reader knows the formula for an amino group and for a carboxyl group, which is typically not the case, and it would be helpful to describe that in the alt text (since it's obvious from the image), at least as something like "NH2" and "COOH". Similar comments apply to most of the other alt text: briefly describe what info the visual appearance of the image gives to the reader, omitting info that's already in caption or adjacent text. For Image:D+L-Alanine.gif the current alt text is OK, but I would mention that an invisible mirror plane separates the two molecules, and that the axis of revolution is within this plane. It might not hurt to add that the two molecules are nearly touching. Eubulides (talk) 08:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
- I've added explanatory alt text, rather than descriptive alt text, to all the images. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
- It seesm one image has been neglected (the polypeptide bond). See the alt text checker mentioned above.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- That link isn't working (toolserver down again?). Which image do you mean? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:04, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- File:Protein-primary-structure.png .--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- Diff, alt text was there, but the alt tag wasn't. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
- Made a slight change to this one, I think it is clearer; Diff Master gopher (talk) 02:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
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- The self-link is in a template common to multiple articles. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
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- I've replaced one, removed one and the third works fine for me. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
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- Added a few full stops.
- Please reread.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 00:03, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Addressed. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:28, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- The images all seem to be PD and the citation is very thorough.
- The following verbiage needs copyediting:
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"Some other amino acids found early were cystine in 1810[5], its monomer, cysteine, was only discovered in 1884,[6][4] and glycine and leucine in 1820.[7]" is runon it seems. - Reworded.
- This is still runon as "Some other amino acids found early were cystine in 1810[5], its monomer, cysteine, was only discovered in 1884."
- I would rearrange as Some other amino acids found early were cystine in 1810[5] as well as Glycine and leucine in 1820.[7] Cystine's monomer, cysteine, was only discovered in 1884.[6][4]--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Reworded more, cysteine and cystine do need to be together though.
"as in lysine on the right," would probably be more grammatical as "such as lysine, which is shown to the right" or "such as lysine (see image to the right)" - Reworded.
- I don't like "as in". How about "such as" and then add a comma after the parenthesis.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- Having a comma and a parenthesis seems a bit redundant, but you're right that "such as" is probably better.
I believe "and hydrophobe if they are nonpolar." should be "or hydrophobe if they are nonpolar." unless it behaves as several of these at the same time. - Reworded.
Rephrase "are catalogued in the article, proteinogenic amino acid." to WP:ASR. Find a way to link the term more naturally. - Reworded.
- "but this is not correct in the current nomenclature.[10]" Explain why.
- Reworded.
- Here is what I am looking for "Proline has sometimes been termed an imino acid because of its XX property, but is classed as an amino acid in the current nomenclature since it is simply a YY-type structure.[10]"--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 13:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
- You can call it either, I've modified the text to explain why you can call it an imino acid, but I don't know why this isn't followed by IUBMB numenclature (historical reasons I suspect). The Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology refers to it as an "N-alkylated alpha-amino acid", which comes partway between the two!
- I would try to be more NPOV on this issue. I would name sources that call it Imino, sources that call it amino and this middle of the road source should be added to educate the reader as to the possible points of confusion.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:17, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- I've added a source for "imino" and the third alternative name, but going into this in more detail is difficult as I can't find any sources that actually discuss the various options - people just choose one of the other and don't explain themselves. I could synthesise this literature and discuss this myself, but that would be inserting my own opinions. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- I will add further prose comments in time.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
"the number of protonated ammonium groups with a positive charge and deprotonated carboxylate groups with a negative charge are equal" seems ungrammatical. If I am correct this should be "the number of protonated ammonium groups with positive charges and deprotonated carboxylate groups with negative charges are equal" - Reworded.
I would explain that unbranched means that of the four bonds to the carbon atom no more than two of them are to other carbon atoms. - Reworded.
- Linked.
- The "In human nutrition" needs expansion. I am a former competitive weightlifter and credit any success I had to lysine, arginine and ornithine. Younger weightlifters now use creatine, which sounds like an amino acid and has become quite controversial. I feel a WP:GA on this topic should explain how particular aminos are important in muscular development. I should be able to come to this article and find something out about that topic.
- See the daughter article protein in nutrition. Unfortunately creatine is not an amino acid, so we can't discuss it in this article. Tim Vickers (talk) 14:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Where are the H and A essentials for the PVT TIM HALL thingy? - "Essential" is a slippery idea, as the rest of the text in this section explains, so I don't think any mnemonic can be accurate. I've cut this entirely.
At one point you use the term building units and another building blocks. I recall the latter being familiar. I think the article should be consistent. - Reworded.
"either forming part of their main chains, or bonded as side chains" does not seem to need a comma to me. - Reworded.
- I will finish this later.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
Again "and are discussed in the articles dealing with each specific type of amino acid" should be restated to avoid WP:ASR. - Reworded.
"while integral membrane proteins tend to have outer ring of hydrophobic amino acids that anchors them into the lipid bilayer," is currently ungrammatical in its person agreement. - Reworded.
- I have edited this.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
- The copyedit is done.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 01:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
- The article is in pretty good shape. I will monitor progress on addressing my concerns and evaluate the article after a week.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 21:50, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
The report claims some applications that may not exist or are only used in ultra-specialized research labs. It would be great if anyone can identify a synthetic catalyst that has amino acid component. The report also has a sizeable section on "Biodegradable plastics." I guess biodegradable plastics could be made from amino acids, but probably none are made that way, so this section is a tangential and probably belongs in the article on peptides. So I was thinking of making that move. From the industrial production data, it appears taht the applications are pretty prosaic. Mankind main use of amino acids is to make food spicy. Or to fatten cows, pigs, and chickens.--Smokefoot (talk) 17:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC) [edit] Table of abbreviations out of date? I've just rolled back an IP edit in the "Table of standard amino acid abbreviations and side chain properties" section reading: The data shown here are outdated. The hydropathy scale is currently devised on the space a amino acid takes when present inside a tertiary protein, and based on that, Phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan that have a benzene ring in their side group have maximum hydrophobicity. My reference is the book "Genes V" by Benzamin Lewin. I don't have much time now, otherwise I could give you the related research paper. Kindly update. Can someone with a bit more knowledge take a look whether this needs looking at. |
