In: Chemistry
Give 4 examples of pairs of polar amino acids that might be substituted for each other with little effect on protein function due to the amino acids having the same functional group. For each pair, name the functional group they have in common.
The four pairs of amino acids are listed below.
i) Asparagine (Asn) and Glutamine (Gln); both contain neutral functional groups. The neutral functional group present is –CONH2. Asn contains –CH2CONH2 while Gln has –CH2CH2CONH2.
ii) Aspartic acid (Asp) and Glutamic acid (Glu); both are acidic amino acids and the functional group present is –COOH. Asp contains –CH2COOH and Glu contains –CH2CH2COOH.
iii) Serine (Ser) and Threonine (Thr); both are neutral polar amino acids containing functional group –OH. Ser contains –CH2OH as the side chain while Thr has –CH(OH)CH3 as the side chain.
iv) Histidine (His) and Tryptophan (Trp); both are neutral polar amino acids containing 5-membered N-rings. His contains imidazole ring while Trp has indole ring.