Need some help pver here ...

[Knighty]

Hi

I'm a med student (2nd yr) 'n I have a test soon in BioChem...

I need to memorize the Amino Acids 'n their categories... ( 'n fast.. )

Can anyone help me do that... ?
Does anyone know any website that helps me doin' so , or provides a table or a pic or sth that helps memorizin' them fast...?

Thanx in advance for anyone who's willin' to take the time 'n help...

[blcr11]

Most of them are obvious when you think of the name of the amino acid; Alanine = A, Leucine = L, R-ginine = R, Isoleucine = I, F-enylalanine = F, etc. There are a few that just have to be memorized like Tryptophan = W (well, you can sort of imagine a W as a fused ring system, which is what W's side chain is) and Lysine = K. I don’t know if it helps much or not, but I remember asparDic acid and gluE-tamic acid (and that D and E are adjacent letters of the alphabet with D's side chain being 1 carbon shorter than E so asparDic comes before gluE-tamic acid). The amides of same are asparagiNe and Q-tamine--again adjacent letters of the alphabet etc. I don’t know of any anatomy-style mnemonic, though.

[blcr11]

OK, so N and Q are NOT adjacent letters--they are in the same "sequence" of the smaller side chain coming before the longer side chain. I actually just remeber Q-tamine = Glutamine and then N has to be Asparagine by default.