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The Chemistry Consortium
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More than 50% of the dry weight of animals are made up of proteins. They act as enzymes, which means chemicals that would cause other chemical reactions to take place. Proteins are polymers of amino acids. Amino acids consists of 2 functional groups - the Carboxyl and the Amino group. Amino acids link through the amino group on one amino acid & the carboxyl group on another. Each linkage is called a peptide bond, represented by  . Peptide bonds between the amino acids are broken by enzymes known as proteases.The human body can synthesize 12 of the 20 amino acids. The other 8, called essential amino acids, must be obtained from protein in the diet. Any protein that contains enough of all the essential amino acids is called a complete protein. Certain combinations of plant proteins can provide adequate amountsof all essential amino acids are called complememntory proteins.
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