Wikipedia: Amino acid/Talk

Please don't tabelize this. If the content is indented, wiki goes ahead and puts it in a fixed-width font. Judicious use of spacing then provides nearly the same benefit of HTML table markup, but with much, much less clutter. This clutter obscures the content when one edits, and may discourage the HTML-averse from contributing.

I question, even, whether the introduction of subscripting for chemical formula is justified--clearly, so far, I've come down in favor of it, but just barely.

OK, go ahead and tabelize this, if you want. I've learned, in the context of the SI derived unit/Talk page (or thereabouts) that subscript and superscript tags are not allowed within preformatted text tags (<sup>, etc are not allowed inside of <pre>) which I confirmed by a look at the HTML specs.

The ascii drawing of the ring structure is really nice, so it breaks my heart to not be able to mix super- an subscripts with preformatting. I don't know if we can specify via HTML markup and UseMod wiki a fixed-width font for such pages.

I just put the table tags back in and used the <tt> tag and   escape code to simulate preformatted text. I hope this isn't too ugly for future editors and doesn't step on the HTML standards worse than subscripts in <pre> tags did.

I didn't add any new information, so just undo my edit if you don't like it and nothing will be lost.

I think it looks very good. You used a lot of space between elements in the table markup, which I think might aid anyone who would subsequently try to edit it. Thank you.

Most of this side chain ascii-art just sux, and at least Proline is incorect (it's probably imposible to draw it this way) Someone should draw real images and upload them here (the second part seems more difficult) --Taw

Drawing amino acids is actually really easy; you just need a chemistry drawing program. Any chemist should have a commerical one; ISIS/Draw? is free for personal use, among other programs. If people really want, I'll make up some suitable image, but it'll be at least a little work, so I'll wait for feedback first -Dlamming

Why the table has been removed ? There are many useful information that can be tabelized like their masses, isoelectric points, type (hydrophobic/hydrophilic) Taw

Whoops. Didn't realize I'd delete the properties together with the table (yes, strange). I put the table back in, without the structure. If you want, go ahead and cut the image into "handy" pieces and put them into the table, but I'm not sure that will improve the whole thing, as some AA images would be quite large. But, that might work on the individual AA pages, once we can upload things right here... --Magnus Manske

Images are ok as they are now. They wouldn't fit easily into table. Taw

Request: could somebody write about all amino acids out of The 20 that are either:

important in metabolism, like ornitine?
part of some proteins, like hydroxyproline?

Taw

A helpful 3-D modeling program called [[CHIME]] exists for those who explore the tertiary structures. And I have made nice 3d jpgs of ball and stick saccharine and ATP molecules from the CHIME program. Let me know if u want me to try to get the color chimes/jpg of the 20 essentials ok ? ~BF -a closet scientist, but publically New Age !

Could somebody cut (easy part) and upload (hard part) images of individual amino acids. They will be used on pages of each of them some day. Taw

I'd be interested in more information on amino acids other than the standard 20. Particularly:

Are there any amino acids not coded by codons in humans, but which are in other lifeforms?
Are there any amino acids not found naturally in humans, but present in other species? (I'm not talking about D- vs. L- forms here, but wholly separate amino acides).
How many naturally occuring amino acids are known, across all species, other than the standard 20, selenocysteine, ornithine and the D-forms of those? The article mentions that beta forms, but are there any other alpha forms? -- SJK

The genetic code using pretty much the same amino acids in all living things. If you want to go beyond them, you get a whole slough of different compounds, including a variety in humans and a variety in other living things, most of which are different alpha-forms, often slight modifications of the standard 20 (cystine, selenocysteine, hydroxyproline, etc). I'm afraid it would be vain to try and enumerate them all, or even to give a representative list without a biochem text handy, as there is a whole slough of them.