Amino acids are the organic compounds that are the essential components in protein synthesis. These amino acids are more than 500 in numbers that are obtained naturally.
But, out of those 500 only 20 amino acids have been genetically coded till date and hence we need to focus only on these 20 amino acids.
Furthermore, these 20 amino acids are classified into three types on the basis of the nutrition they provide or are sourced from.
They are Essential amino acids, non-essential amino acids and conditional amino acids. Here we will be concentrating on the nine essential amino acids.
Essential amino acids are those amino acids which need to be consumed through external sources like food, dietary supplements or pills. Which means they are not produced within your body, as the other amino acids do.
The nine essential amino acids are Histidine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan, and Valine
The structure of essential amino acids
First let’s understand what is the structure of amino acids in general.
Amino acids are the organic compounds made up of important groups,
- Amine group
- Carboxylic acid group
- A hydrogen atom
- R group
The above four components are attached to the central carbon atom, making it a chiral carbon. This chirality defines the optical activity of the amino acids and also other important functions.
R group is different for every amino acid, which makes it distinct from each other, and thus can help us identify the particular amino acid.
Let’s check out how many essential amino acids are there:
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