La Jolla

Amino acids are critical to life, and have a variety of roles in metabolism. One particularly important function is as the building blocks of proteins, which are linear chains of amino acids. Every protein is chemically defined by this primary structure, its unique sequence of amino acid residues, which in turn define the three-dimensional structure of the protein. Just as the letters of the alphabet can be combined to form an almost endless variety of words, amino acids can be linked together in varying sequences to form a vast variety of proteins. Amino acids are also important in many other biological molecules, such as forming parts of coenzymes or as precursors for the biosynthesis of molecules. Due to this central role in biochemistry, amino acids are very important in nutrition.