Amino Acid One Letter Code - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Phonetic 1-letter Amino Acid Abbreviations
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In this video, we're gonna begin our discussion on the amino acid one letter codes for all 20 of the standard amino acids. So it turns out that the one letter amino acid codes are just a little bit more challenging to memorize than the 3 letter amino acid codes. But that just has to do with the fact that there are more one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin. And so recall with our previous lessons on the 3 letter amino acid codes, that there were only 4 amino acids with phonetic three letter abbreviations. But with our one letter amino acid codes, there are actually 8 amino acids with phonetic one letter abbreviations. So that's double the amount and that's why they're a little bit more challenging to memorize. But if we're able to commit all 8 of these one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin to memory, then memorizing all of the other one letter abbreviations are gonna be super, super easy for you guys. And we'll be able to see how that works in our next lesson video. But for now, down below in this box, we have the 8 one letter symbols of phonetic origin organized in alphabetical order. And so, what you'll see is in the first blank for each of these amino acids, we need to think what letter could we place to fill the sound phonetically and reveal the one letter code and the second blank. And so for arginine, it's pretty clear that if we put an r into this blank here, we can fill the sound phonetically. And so its name its sound is gonna be arginine and its one letter code will be r. Now, for a spare gene, we have this blank to fill. And so if we put an N into this blank, we can fill the sound phonetically for a spare gene, and its one letter code is N. For aspartic acid, if we put a d here for aspartic, it will reveal its one letter code of d. Now for glutamic acid, in the glutamic part, if we put an e down here, we can fill the sound phonetically to, give it a one letter symbol with an e. And for glutamine, up at the top here, if we put a q in here, it'll actually fill the sound phonetically. So it'll say cutamine. And glutamine, cutamine sound very similar. And so, it's one letter code is Q. Now, for Phenylalanine, if we put an f in here into this first blank, we can fill the sound phonetically and give it a one letter code of f. Now, for tryptophan, we have to think how would Bugs Bunny say tryptophan. And the way that he would say it is Twiptophan with a w. And so if we were to put a w into this blank, it'll fill the sound phonetically and its one letter code is w. And then of course, last but not least, tyrosine's one letter code is going to be y, and we can fill the sound phonetically here with a y. And so, essentially down below in this image, what we have is a mnemonic to help you guys memorize these 8 amino acids with phonetic one letter abbreviations. And that mnemonic is just nerdy WQF, or nerdy waldo qualifies in Fortnite. And so, most of you guys know what Fortnite is, but for those of you that don't know what it is, Fortnite is a competitive video game. And so, most of you guys have either played Fortnite, you know someone that plays Fortnite, or you know someone that has played Fortnite. But none of you guys know anybody that's played Fortnite as much as Waldo. And to tell you the truth, that's why it's so hard to find Waldo in the first place because he spends all of his time playing Fortnite up in his room all day and night. And so, with this mnemonic over here, each letter in the word nerdy represents one of the one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin. And then WQF, of course, represents, tryptophan, glutamine, and phenylalanine, which are also one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin. And so you can see here, we have this Waldo here and he's pretty nerdy. He's got these glasses on and he's holding up his, number one finger and he's, got this, sign here, this, name tag that says, hello. My name is Waldo. And he's saying I'm nerdy. I qualified in Fortnite. And so by qualified, what he really means is 1st place, and 1st place can help us remember that this mnemonic here is for the one letter amino acid codes, the first place. And that's why he's holding up number 1 for the one letter amino acid codes. And so if you guys can remember, nerdy WQF or nerdy Waldo qualifies in Fortnite, then you'll be able to memmer, you'll be able to remember the 8 amino acids with one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin. And remember, these are the 8 abbreviations that you really wanna spend most of your time committing to memory. Because once you've committed these 8 to memory, then memorizing all of the other amino acids are gonna be much, much easier. And we'll be able to see how that works better in our next lesson video. So I'll see you guys in our next video where we'll be able to get some practice with these concepts.
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Problem
Problem
Which of the following amino acid 1-letter symbols is of phonetic origin?
A
E.
B
K.
C
T.
D
C.
3
concept
Other Amino Acid 1-Letter Codes
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Video transcript
So in our last lesson video, we talked about the 8 one letter amino acid abbreviations of phonetic origin. And remember, it's these 8 that you really wanna spend most of your time studying and memorizing because those are the hard ones to memorize. And once you've committed those 8 to memory, then memorizing all of the other one letter abbreviations are going to be super easy for you guys as we'll see in this video. And so what we've done is we've taken all the other one letter codes and abbreviations and we've broken them up into 3 different groups and color coded them as you can see here. So in our first group, we have the green group and what you'll see is that this green color here corresponds with the green color that we see throughout our image in our example down below. Now, our next group, what we have is our light blue group and again, this light blue color corresponds with the light blue color throughout our image in our example below. And then our yellow group here corresponds with the yellow amino acid in our image below. And so, what you'll also notice is that over here in pink, what we have are the 8 one letter amino acid abbreviations of phonetic origin. And we already talked about those in our previous video, so these one letter abbreviations are already provided for for us. And so we're not gonna be focusing on these, we're gonna be focusing on the ones that we haven't yet talked about, which are the ones that are in blanks, throughout our image. And so in our first group, we have the green group, and what you'll see is that for amino acids with unique first letters, their one letter code or symbol is literally just their first letter, and this applies for all of the ones that are in green in our example below. So what you'll see is that cysteine over here has a first letter of c, which is a unique first letter amongst all of the other first letters for all the other amino acids. And because it has a unique first letter, its first letter is going to be its one letter code. And the same applies for histidine, isoleucine, methionine, serine, and valine, all which have unique first letters and their first letter is used as their one letter abbreviation. So pretty easy. Right? So in our next group, what we have is the light blue group. And in this group, what we'll realize is that some amino acid first letters are not unique, but the first letters are still used for these amino acids and that's because these amino acids are more commonly found in proteins throughout nature. And so, for example, both leucine and lysine start with the letter l, but overall, leucine is more commonly found in proteins than lysine. And so for that reason, leucine is prioritized with the one letter symbol of l. And the same applies for all of the amino acids that are shaded in blue in our example below. And so, what you'll see is that alanine over here has a first letter of a, which is not a unique first letter. But alanine's first letter is still used as its one letter code. And again, that has to do with the fact that alanine is more commonly found in proteins throughout nature, than these other three amino acids that also start with the first letter a. Same applies for glycine. Glycine's first letter is g and it is not a unique first letter, but it's still used as its one letter code because it's more commonly found. Leucine, we just mentioned up above in our example, which is more common than lysine. Proline is more common than phenylalanine, and threonine is more common than tryptophan or tyrosine. And so, at this point, what you'll notice is that we've assigned one letter abbreviations for 19 out of the 20 amino acids. And so far, all we've said is that it's just the 8 of phonetic origin and all the other ones are just the first letter so far, so super easy to remember. Remember. And so the one amino acid that has not been assigned a code yet is lysine, which is this, yellow one here and it's found in this group all by itself. And so at this point, only a few letters remained in the alphabet that were not already assigned to an amino acid. And so literally, the letter k was chosen for lysine because it's the one that was closest to l, which is lysine's first letter, that wasn't already taken by another amino acid. And so lysine's one letter abbreviation is literally just the letter k. And so, again, when you're trying to memorize these one letter abbreviations, instead of trying to memorize all 20 of them, remember that you want to memorize the ones that are in pink. So all the ones that are in pink here are the ones that have, one letter abbreviations of phonetic origin, and there are only 8 of those. So once you've memorized those 8, all you need to know is that lysine's one letter code is k and then all the other ones are just the first letter. So, the ones that are in the blue categories and the green categories, there's really no need to try to memorize those because they're literally the first letter of the amino acid itself. So, hopefully that'll help you guys reduce how much you're trying to memorize. And again, instead of memorizing 20, just focus on memorizing the 8 of phonetic origin and then lysine is k, and that's it. So we'll be able to practice and utilize these memory tools in our practice videos, so I'll see you guys in those videos.
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Problem
Problem
Which 1-letter-code is unique in that it is neither the first letter of the amino acid nor phonetic in origin?
A
I.
B
L.
C
K.
D
G.
E
T.
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Problem
Problem
Convert the following amino acids into their 1-letter codes: Glycine, Isoleucine, Valine, Tryptophan, Proline.
A
G, I, V, T, P.
B
L, I, V, Y, P.
C
G, L, V, W, P.
D
G, I, V, W, P.
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Problem
Problem
Complete the amino acid abbreviation chart below from memory.
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Problem
Problem
Convert the following 3-letter amino acid codes into 1-letter codes to answer the following question:
How does NASA organize a party?
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8
Problem
Problem
Convert the following 3-letter amino acid codes into 1-letter codes to reveal the sentence.
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9
Problem
Problem
Match the amino acid with the appropriate 1-letter-code.