Essays on Phenylalanine

The critical importance of protein in nutrition and life of the human body was discovered by chemists in the early 19th century, they also came up with "international" name for these chemical compounds - "proteins", from the Greek protos - "first, chief". Proteins have the incomparable value in the human diet: first of all, they serve as "building blocks" for the whole body. In addition, they are responsible for the metabolic and regulatory functions in the body; serve as a basis for the creation of tissues, such as muscle fibers; perform transport functions in metabolic systems of the body, ...

Thin Layer Chromatography of Amino Acids

Introduction The technique used for this experiment was thin layer chromatography (TLC). TLC is used to separate components of a mixture (Clark, 2016). The purpose of this experiment was to identify an unknown amino acid. The components will have different affinities to the stationary and mobile phases. The various components will travel at different rates based on their affinity to either the mobile or stationary phase (Clark). A polar stationary phase is used in TLC experiments and the mobile phase can be a combination of solvents or just one solvent (psu.edu, n.d.). TLC can also be used to monitor ...

Abstract

Chymotrypsin is a typical digestive enzyme which is mainly used in the digestion of proteins through a process commonly known as proteolysis. The enzyme chymotrypsin often cleaves bonds of peptide amide preferentially where a carboxyl side of that bond is a tryptophan, phenylalanine or tyrosine.

In this experiment, the chymotrypsin molecules were arranged in such a manner that all the enzyme molecules began the catalytic process at the same time. The rate at which the p-nitrophenol was being generated was initially rapid which was then followed by a much slower hydrolysis rate at steady state.

Therefore, the experiment essentially did sort to establish the concentration ...