Amino acids

• what is an amino acid?

  organic compound that contains both a carboxylic acid functionality (COOH) and an amine functional group (-NH2)
• how do amino acids make proteins? what are polypeptides?

  • numerous condensation polymerisation reactions; proteins are polymers made of amino acids
  • made by condensation polymerisation of amino acids but are shorter than proteinsproteins can be seen as a product of many polypeptide chains bonded together