Atom Label Key

Naming Convention for α-amino acids


Atom Label

Description


CMain chain Carbon of amide/acid
CAMain chain α carbon
NMain chain nitrogen of amide/amine
OMain chain Oxygen of amide/acid
HMain chain hydrogen of amide
HAMain chain hydrogen of on the α carbon
CBβ Carbon, first carbon of the sidechain
HB?Hydrogen on the β Carbon. '?' is a number 1,2 or 3
OGOxygen on the β Carbon.
CG?γ Carbon. - the '?' if present is a number 1 or 2

The results are shown. The H from the -OH group on C6 is now on the amino acid side chain. The phosphate group has been transferred to the alcohol carbon of glucose and ADP is the other product.

Aspartate


Name3 Letter1 Letter
Aspartate ASP D

protonated (acid form - neutral)
aspartate
Unprotonated (base form - negative)
dominant form at physiological pH
asp3d


Drawn as if part of protein to emphasize the sidechain properties The "Sidechain Polarity" button draws an an envelope around the sidechain that is colored by charge according to the scale above.

pKR in H2O= 3.65 Mass = 133
Probability of being found in a:
α-Helix β-Sheet β-Turn
70% 30% 85%
Special Attributes

Aspartic acid ends in an organic acid which ionizable (can lose a proton to solvent and becomes negatively charged)

At physiological pH of 7 the the terminal acid in aparatate is generally unprotonated (in the base form and negatively charged) it is frequently exposed to water as it is in the demonstration below. In this case, the aspartate is found in random coil.


In the demonstration below you may "left click and drag" to rotate the molecule "SHIFT left click and drag (up or down)" to make smaller or bigger
Click on the white squares in succession to turn or/off identifying features. Some text describing the issues is in the lower right text box



Atom Label Description

Click an atom to diplay it's identity here


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Jmol: an open-source Java viewer for chemical structures in 3D. http://www.jmol.org/