| Cysteine is an amino acid containing sulphur.
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. Between these is the a- (alpha) carbon to which the 'R' group is attached. Its 'R' group is -CH2SH, a methyl group with a thiol group (-SH) attached - yellow and white.
Other informationCysteine can form disulphide bonds ( -SS- ) with other cysteine residues. These bonds form a strong covalent bridge between sections of the polypeptide chain and so contribute to the protein's tertiary structure.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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