Amino-acids, estimation

Amino acids Estimated requirements of adults (grams per day) Milligrams per gram MSNF6 Milligrams per 100 g Fluid whole milk... 

Various workers have sought to simplify the verification of the total amino acid estimates by measuring some of the major amino acids and relating these values to the total. 

Amino Acids Estimated Requirements Composite of Suggested Pattern ... 

Abstract. A smooth empirical potential is constructed for use in off-lattice protein folding studies. Our potential is a function of the amino acid labels and of the distances between the Ca atoms of a protein. The potential is a sum of smooth surface potential terms that model solvent interactions and of pair potentials that are functions of a distance, with a smooth cutoff at 12 Angstrom. Techniques include the use of a fully automatic and reliable estimator for smooth densities, of cluster analysis to group together amino acid pairs with similar distance distributions, and of quadratic progrmnming to find appropriate weights with which the various terms enter the total potential. For nine small test proteins, the new potential has local minima within 1.3-4.7A of the PDB geometry, with one exception that has an error of S.SA. 

We therefore use smooth density estimation techniques that are more reliable than the histogram estimates. To improve the reliability for rare amino acid pairs, we use clustering techniques that identify similar pairs that can be modeled by the same density. 

Method. An amino-acid such as glycine, NHjCH,COOH, cannot be estimated by direct titration with standard alkali solution, owing to the opposing effects of the basic and the acidic groups. If, however, the amino-acid is first... 

The calculation depends simply on the fact that 1000 ml. M.NaOH 1 g. mol. of glycine. The method can clearly be used either to deter mine the molecular weight of an amino-acid of known basicity, or to estimate an amino-acid of known molecular weight. 

The significance of industrial acrolein production may be clearer if one considers the two major uses of acrolein—direct oxidation to acryUc acid and reaction to produce methionine via 3-methyhnercaptopropionaldehyde. In acryUc acid production, acrolein is not isolated from the intermediate production stream. The 1990 acryUc acid production demand in the United States alone accounted for more than 450,000 t/yr (28), with worldwide capacity approaching 1,470,000 t/yr (29). Approximately 0.75 kg of acrolein is required to produce one kilogram of acryUc acid. The methionine production process involves the reaction of acrolein with methyl mercaptan. Worldwide methionine production was estimated at about 170,000 t/yr in 1990 (30). (See Acrylic ACID AND DERIVATIVES AmINO ACIDS, SURVEY.)... 

An estimation of the amount of amino acid production and the production methods are shown ia Table 11. About 340,000 t/yr of L-glutamic acid, principally as its monosodium salt, are manufactured ia the world, about 85% ia the Asian area. The demand for DL-methionine and L-lysiae as feed supplements varies considerably depending on such factors as the soybean harvest ia the United States and the anchovy catch ia Pern. Because of the actions of D-amiao acid oxidase and i.-amino acid transamiaase ia the animal body (156), the D-form of methionine is as equally nutritive as the L-form, so that DL-methionine which is iaexpensively produced by chemical synthesis is primarily used as a feed supplement. In the United States the methionine hydroxy analogue is partially used ia place of methionine. The consumption of L-lysiae has iacreased ia recent years. The world consumption tripled from 35,000 t ia 1982 to 100,000 t ia 1987 (214). Current world consumption of L-tryptophan and i.-threonine are several tens to hundreds of tons. The demand for L-phenylalanine as the raw material for the synthesis of aspartame has been increasing markedly. 

Protein Components. The simplest picture of the proteinaceous components is one of polypeptides, which are composed of a-amino acid residues. It is estimated that wool contains about 170 different types of polypeptides varying in molecular mass from below 10,000 to greater than 50,000 (34). Complete acid hydrolysis of wool yields 18 amino acids, the relative amounts of which vary considerably from one wool to another. Typical figures for two different samples of wool are given in Table 7. 

In refined structures at high resolution (around 2 A) there are usually no major errors in the orientation of individual residues, and the estimated errors in atomic positions are around 0.1-0.2 A provided the amino acid sequence is known. Hydrogen bonds both within the protein and to bound ligands can be identified with a high degree of confidence. 

X-ray structures are determined at different levels of resolution. At low resolution only the shape of the molecule is obtained, whereas at high resolution most atomic positions can be determined to a high degree of accuracy. At medium resolution the fold of the polypeptide chain is usually correctly revealed as well as the approximate positions of the side chains, including those at the active site. The quality of the final three-dimensional model of the protein depends on the resolution of the x-ray data and on the degree of refinement. In a highly refined structure, with an R value less than 0.20 at a resolution around 2.0 A, the estimated errors in atomic positions are around 0.1 A to 0.2 A, provided the amino acid sequence is known. 

FIGURE 5.5 (a) The hydroxy amino acids serine and threonine are slowly destroyed during the course of protein hydrolysis for amino acid composition analysis. Extrapolation of the data back to time zero allows an accurate estimation of the amonnt of these amino acids originally present in the protein sample, (b) Peptide bonds involving hydrophobic amino acid residues snch as valine and isolencine resist hydrolysis by HCl. With time, these amino acids are released and their free concentrations approach a limiting value that can be approximated with reliability. 

For a polypeptide chain of 100 residues in length, a rather modest size, the number of possible sequences is 20 , or because 20 = lO, lO unique possibilities. These numbers are more than astronomical Because an average protein molecule of 100 residues would have a mass of 13,800 daltons (average molecular mass of an amino acid residue = 138), lO such molecules would have amass of 1.38 X lO " daltons. The mass of the observable universe is estimated to be 10 proton masses (about 10 daltons). Thus, the universe lacks enough material to make just one molecule of each possible polypeptide sequence for a protein only 100 residues in length. 

---