Amino Acids – Building Blocks of Life Science

What Makes Our Amino Acids Unique?

• ISO 9001 certified and supported by our M-Clarity Program, ensuring high performance and transparency.
• Non-animal origin solutions, ideal for serum-free or animal-protein-free media applications.
• Scalable options available in sizes from milligrams to kilograms, ready to ship today. Look for this icon:
• Fast RNA translation to quickly and easily find which amino acid is translated from your RNA sequence.
• Unrivaled quality peptide synthesis, to support reliable, reproducible peptide development.

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What are Amino Acids?

Amino Acids are critical building blocks of peptides and proteins, containing an amine group and carboxylic group and a side chain (R group) that are unique to each amino acid as well as intermediates in metabolism. The 21 proteinogenic α-amino acids found in eukaryotes are grouped according to their side chains, pKa values and charges carried at physiological pH (7.4).¹

The amino and the carboxyl groups of amino acids react to form a covalent amide linkage, called a peptide bond. This feature of amino acids allows them to polymerize to form peptides as well as proteins, which generally have longer than 50 amino acids in chain length.

Types of Amino Acids

Amino acids all under several categorizations, each serving unique functions in metabolism and cellular structure. Understanding these types is essential for optimizing research and applications in biochemistry and molecular biology.

Essential Amino Acids

Include histidine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan and cannot be synthesized by human or other mammalian cells.

Non-essential Amino Acids (NEAA)

NEAA include Alanine, Asparagine, Aspartic Acid, Glutamic Acid, Glutamine, Cysteine, Glycine, Proline, Serine, Tyrosine are integrated into the body not derived from the diet.² As the building blocks of proteins, amino acids are critical for inclusion in cell culture media. NEAA are those that are typically made by the organism but can be added to culture media — individually or in the form of an NEAA cocktail — as a supplement to stimulate cell growth and promote longevity.

Branched-Chain Amino Acids (BCAA)

BCAA are significant in research applications for protein synthesis, metabolic disorders, and liver diseases and include leucine, isoleucine and valine. BCAAs help reduce the breakdown of proteins in the body. Three proteinogenic BCAAs are among the 9 essential amino acids for humans.³ Synthesis for BCAAs occurs within plastids of the cell, determined by mRNA which encode enzymes in the metabolic pathway.⁴

Poly-Amino Acids

Our poly-amino acids have properties that mimic proteins, making them ideal for both drug delivery and the delivery of nucleic acids both in vitro and in vivo. We supply both research and cGMP poly-amino acids with improved solubility, drug attachment stability, drug encapsulation, drug targeting, bypassing multidrug resistance (MDR) factors, minimal stimulation of the immune system, low toxicity, and biodegradability. We manufacture custom poly-amino acids for specific molecular weight ranges or polydispersity ranges (size distribution). Moreover, we can conjugate poly-amino acids to active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for your drug delivery use.

Unnatural Amino Acids

Unnatural amino acids are non-proteinogenic amino acids that either occur naturally or are chemically synthesized. Whether utilized as building blocks, conformational constraints, molecular scaffolds, or pharmacologically active products, our unnatural amino acids represent a nearly infinite array of diverse structural elements for the development of new leads in peptidic and non-peptidic compounds. Due to their seemingly unlimited structural diversity and functional versatility, they are widely used as chiral building blocks and molecular scaffolds in constructing combinatorial libraries. Used as molecular probes, they can help to better understand the function of biological systems. Optimized and fine-tuned analogues of peptidic substrates, inhibitors, or effectors are also excellent analytical tools and molecular probes for investigating signal transduction pathways or gene regulation.

References

1. Jakubke HD, Sewald N (2008). "Amino acids". Peptides from A to Z: A Concise Encyclopedia. Germany: Wiley-VCH. p. 20.
2. Lopez M. J., Mohiuddin, S. (2024). “Biochemistry, Essential Amino Acids”
3. Yoshiharu, S., Taro, M., Naoya, N., Masaru, N., Harris, R. (2004) “Exercise Promotes BCAA Catabolism: Effects of BCAA Supplementation on Skeletal Muscle during Exercise” Journal of Nutrition