The amino acids are used to build the proteins in your body, from collagen to hemoglobin. Although only twenty amino acids are genetically coded, the molecules may be altered after they are produced (tranlsated from the code), so ultimately more than the standard twenty amino acids exist. The amino acids usually are grouped according to whether or not their side chains are polar and charged, polar and uncharged, or nonpolar. It's a good idea to commit the names and structures of these molecules to memory, since they are so important to the study of biochemistry.
Amino Acid Structures | Amino Acid Properties
Amino Acid Structures | Amino Acid Properties
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If you ever need to draw an amino acid structure, or a sequence of aa’s, a peptide in other words, check out ChemSpider Chmical Structures. All the amino acids are there among the 10million+ molecules in their database. You can generate the structures, save as mol files and important into any mol reader. More interestingly though, the services section of the sites allows you to type in an amino acid sequence Phe-Glu-Ala…. and have it rendered as a 2D molecule, which can then be exported as a mol for manipulation in a chemical graphics package
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