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Proteins
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The
basic matter that compose living creatures are proteins. They determine
shape, physical, chemical and even behavioral features of cells and
organisms. Proteins perform structural, transporting, storing, regulating
functions. They are hormones (information transmitters), antibodies,
enzymes (they catalyze - enable and quicken - chemical reactions that
take place in organism).
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Proteins
are complicated particles built from amino acids. Twenty possible amino
acids in a linear order form a polypeptide. Protein is one or more polypeptides
that have a particular spatial structure. The way in which a polypeptide
will be winded up has a great meaning and is determined by order of
amino acids. Changing that order can lead to rise of biologically inactive
protein.
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polypeptide
Arg, Cys, Lys etc are abbreviations for names of amino acids
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For names, abbrevations,
linear formulas, and 3d pictures of all amino acids try this link: http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistry/bio/amino-acids_en.html
Information
about cell structure and function is kept in deoxyribonucleic acids
(DNA).
DNA
stores the information about among other structure of proteins. DNA
code translates linear sequence of four elements (four possible bases
in DNA) into linear sequence of twenty elements (amino acids in a protein).
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