Chart of Amino Acids

As basic building blocks of proteins, amino acids are biologically fundamental and important. So far, there have been around 500 known amino acids which can be classified in many different ways1. However, only 22 amino acids in prokaryotes and 21 in eukaryotes are encoded by genes, and are incorporated into proteins. These amino acids are called “proteinogenic”. Here is a chart of these most popular amino acids.


Figure: The 21 proteinogenic α-amino acids found in eukaryotes.


  1. Wagner I, Musso H. New Naturally Occurring Amino Acids. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1983 22(11): 816–828. ↩︎

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