CH 461 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Aromatic Amino Acids, Tryptophan Synthase, Essential Amino Acid
Document Summary
The metabolism of the carbon chains of amino acids is varied. In humans and laboratory rats, half of the twenty amino acids found in proteins are essentialand must be supplied in the diet, either from plant, animal, or microbial sources. The other half can be made from other compounds, especially from the products of carbohydrate metabolism. You can remember the essential amino acids by using a mnemonic: very many hairy little pigs live in the torrid which translates to, valine methionine histidine leucine phenylalanine lysine. Only human babies require arginine (which is made in the urea cycle) and histidine. Many of the nonessential amino acids are derived directly from intermediate products of the. The key reactions include: transamination, as in the synthesis of alanine from pyruvate, amidation via amidotransferases, as in glutamine synthetase: A more complex series of reactions synthesizes other nonessential amino acids.
