There are 20 amino acids that make up proteins and all have the same basic structure, differing only in the R-group or side chain they have. Amino acids are in an equilibrium between two acids with ...

How can just four nitrogenous bases--adenine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil--possibly code for all 20 amino acids? Thus, early researchers quickly determined that the smallest combination of As, Cs, ...

Living things, from bacteria to humans, depend on a workforce of proteins to carry out essential tasks within their cells. Proteins are chains of amino acids that are strung together according to ...

The findings, which detail how amino acids shaped the genetic code of ancient microorganisms, shed light on the mystery of how life began on Earth. "You see the same amino acids in every organism, ...

mTORC1 carries out its role by regulating certain anabolic (synthetic) and catabolic (degradative) processes. These involve protein synthesis; production of the protein-synthesis machinery in the form ...

Proteins are the workhorses that keep our cells running, and there are many thousands of types of proteins in our cells, each ...

With only rare exceptions, every organism constructs proteins from just 20 building blocks called amino acids. Recently, however, researchers modified Escherichia coli bacteria so that the ...

Membrane proteins play important roles in health and disease, but they are so hydrophobic that they require detergents to maintain their shape outside membranes. That makes them difficult to study.

To reveal the structural principles determining substrate specificity of 4-coumarate:CoA ligase (4CL), the crystal structure of the phenylalanine activation domain of gramicidin S synthetase was used ...