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Amino-Acids

Amino-acids are monomers that combine to make polymers called polypeptides.Polypeptides can be joined together to make proteins.There are over 500 known amino-acids. 20 of them occur naturally in proteins.Each amino-acid has four groups around a central carbon atom: an amino group (-NH2) a carboxyl group (-COOH), a hydrogen atom and a residual or R group.

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Specification: AQA Biology (7401), AS-level, 3.1.4.1 General properties of proteins. Topic: Biological Molecules.

Key terms in this lesson

polymer
A large molecule made of many repeating monomer units joined together by covalent bonds.
monomer
A small molecule that is a repeating subunit from which larger molecules such as polymers are made.

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