Amino acid symbols
Amino acid symbols: Symbols that stand for the amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Each amino acid has both a three-letter symbol and a single-letter symbol. For example, the three-letter and single-letter symbols for alanine are Ala and A. The three-letter symbols (such as Ala) are much more widely used than the single letter ones (such as A).
Therefore, the following list is limited to the three-letter symbols and is further limited to those 20 alpha-amino acids specified by the genetic code:
Alanine: Ala
Arginine: Arg
Asparagine: Asn
Aspartic acid: Asp
Cysteine: Cys
Glutamic acid: Glu
Glutamine: Gln
Glycine: Gly
Histidine: His
Isoleucine: Ile
Leucine: Leu
Lysine: Lys
Methionine: Met
Phenylalanine: Phe
Proline: Pro
Serine: Ser
Threonine: Thr
Tryptophan: Trp
Tyrosine: Tyr
Valine: Val
These three-letter symbols for amino acids are used not only to refer to an individual amino acid but also to present the amino acid sequence of a polypeptide or a protein. For example, part of the sequence of insulin reads: Gly-Ile-Val-Glu-Gln-Cys-Cys-Ala-Ser-Val. The N-terminal residue of the polypeptide or protein is by convention always on the left and the sequence reads from left-to-right toward the C-terminal residue of the polypeptide or protein.
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