Aliphatic amino acids


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Honorary member of the aliphatic group:


Strictly speaking, aliphatic implies that the protein side chain contains only carbon or hydrogen atoms. However, it is convenient to consider Methionine in this category. Although its side-chain contains a sulphur atom, it is largely non-reactive, meaning that Methionine effectively susbsitutes well with the true aliphatic amino acaids.


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Please cite: M.J. Betts, R.B. Russell. Amino acid properties and consequences of subsitutions.
In Bioinformatics for Geneticists, M.R. Barnes, I.C. Gray eds, Wiley, 2003.
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