Answer to Question #105832 in Chemistry for Pooja Kumari

Question

Describe the ways of classifying amino acids and give example of each class

Answer 1

Amino acids are classified according to their:

1) chemical properties:

• non-polar (leucine, isoleucine, tryptophan)
• polar (serine, tyrosine, glutamine)
• positively-charged (lysine, arginine)
• negatively-charged (glutamic acid)

2) structure of the side group:

• aliphatic (valine)
• hydroxyl-containing (serine)
• sulphur-containing (threonine)
• cyclic (proline)
• aromatic (tryptophan)
• basic (histidine)
• acidic (aspartic acid)
• amides (asparagine)
• imino acids (proline)

3) biological value:

• essential (histidine, valine, phenylalanine)
• conditionally non-essential (tyrosine, arginine)
• non-essential (alanine, glutamic acid)

4) products of metabolic degradation:

• glucogenic (can be used for the synthesis of glucose)
• ketogenic (degrade to acetyl-CoA)