| Aspartic acid is an amino acid containing an extra carboxylic acid group. It may also be described as 2-aminobutanedioic acid.
Like all amino acids, it has an amino group (-NH2) - blue with 2 white balls - at one end, and a carboxylic acid group (-COOH) - grey, connected to red, and red and white - at the other end. These groups are used to link onto other amino acids by peptide bonds. Between these is the a- (alpha) carbon to which the 'R' group is attached. Its 'R' group is -(CH2)-COOH, a methyl group with another carboxylic acid group (-COOH) attached - grey, with red and red and white - at the other end of the molecule.
Other informationAspartic acid has an extra carboxylic acid group on its R group, so it has extra acidic characteristics. The acid group can ionise and interact with other R groups within a polypeptide chain.You can move this molecule in 3 dimensions by holding down the left button and dragging using the mouse. If you have a central mouse wheel you can usually zoom the image in/out. Right clicking gives a variety of display options. Simply leaving the mouse pointer over one of the atoms will give information about it; the atom symbol, and some other less useful numerical information. |
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