Glycine properties

Physical Properties. Glycine is a colourless crystalline solid soluble in water. Owing to the almost equal opposing effects of the amino and the carboxylic groups. its aqueous solution is almost neutral (actually, slightly acidic to phenolphthalein) and glycine is therefore known as a neutral ampholyte. f It exhibits both acidic and basic properties. 

The physical properties of a typical amino acid such as glycine suggest that it is a very polar substance much more polar than would be expected on the basis of its formula tion as H2NCH2CO2H Glycine is a crystalline solid it does not melt but on being heated It eventually decomposes at 233°C It is very soluble m water but practically insoluble m nonpolar organic solvents These properties are attributed to the fact that the stable form of glycine is a zwittenon, or inner salt... 

NMD A receptors are selectively activated by A/-methyl-D-aspartate (NMD A) (182). NMD A receptor activation also requires glycine or other co-agonist occupation of an allosteric site. NMDAR-1, -2A, -2B, -2C, and -2D are the five NMD A receptor subunits known. Two forms of NMDAR-1 are generated by alternative splicing. NMDAR-1 proteins form homomeric ionotropic receptors in expression systems and may do so m situ in the CNS. Functional responses, however, are markedly augmented by co-expression of a NMDAR-2 and NMDAR-1 subunits. The kinetic and pharmacological properties of the NMD A receptor are influenced by the particular subunit composition. 

The amino acids are usually divided into three different classes defined hy the chemical nature of the side chain. The first class comprises those with strictly hydrophobic side chains Ala (A), Val (V), Leu (L), He (1), Phe (F), Pro (P), and Met (M). The four charged residues, Asp (D), Glu (E), Lys (K), and Arg (R), form the second class. The third class comprises those with polar side chains Ser (S), Thr (T), Cys (C), Asn (N), Gin (Q), His (H), Tyr (Y), and Trp (W). The amino acid glycine (G), which has only a hydrogen atom as a side chain and so is the simplest of the 20 amino acids, has special properties and is usually considered either to form a fourth class or to belong to the first class. 

Table 1 presents the chemical composition and some properties of both gums reported by Osman et al., 1993 and Williams Phillips, et al., 2000. Despite having different protein content, amino acid composition is similar in both gums. Recently, Mahendran et al., 2008, reported the GA amino acid composition in Acacia Senegal, being rich in hydroxyproline, serine, threonine, leucine, glycine, histidine. Table 2. 

The primary structure of a polypeptide is its sequence of amino acids. It is customary to write primary structures of polypeptides using the three-letter abbreviation for each amino acid. By convention, the structure is written so that the amino acid on the left bears the terminal amino group of the polypeptide and the amino acid on the right bears the terminal carboxyl group. Figure 13-35 shows the two dipeptides that can be made from glycine and serine. Although they contain the same amino acids, they are different molecules whose chemical and physical properties differ. Example shows how to draw the primary stmcture of a peptide. 

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