Glycine

Atom Label Key

Naming Convention for α-amino acids

The Organic acid carbon is labled the acid.
Each carbon afterwards is labeled in order by the greek alphabet
α, β, γ, δ, ε, etc.
Every atom is labeled by element type and then its position ie. the alpha carbon is CA; the beta carbon is CB

Atom Label	Description

C	Main chain Carbon of amide/acid
CA	Main chain α carbon
N	Main chain nitrogen of amide/amine
O	Main chain Oxygen of amide/acid
H	Main chain hydrogen of amide
HA	Main chain hydrogen of on the α carbon
CB	β Carbon, first carbon of the sidechain
HB?	Hydrogen on the β Carbon. '?' is a number 1,2 or 3
OG	Oxygen 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.

Glycine

Name

3 Letter

1 Letter

Glycine

GLY

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.

pK_R= NOT ionizable in water under physiological conditions

Free amino acid mass = 75 g/M

Probabiltiy of being found in a:

α-Helix

β-Sheet

β-Turn

40%

80%

Special Attributes

Lack of a β-Carbon: the only common amino acid that is NOT chiral, gives this amino acid considerably more flexibilty that all others, therefore a much larger area of the phi/psi plot is available. (more on this later)

It is frequently found in β-turns where its flexibilty is required. Infrequently found in a α-helix since its flexibilty gives it more degrees of freedom.

in the demonstration below, the highlighted glycine is part of a β-sheet just prior to where a β-turn begins. It is buried inside the protein away from water in this case

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
	Messages about the currently highlighted features

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