cells; but on the whole, animals have relatively much more proteins than plants in which cellulose predominaes. Among animals the mammales are constituted largely of proteins (eg. skin, hair, nails, haemoglobin, muscles etc). Antibodies, enzymes, some hormones, viz. insulin are proteinous in nature. It is very important to note that the tissue proteins of any two of the individuals are not identical, excep for two twins. Due to this characteristic, proteins help in protecting the body by the attack of foreign toxic proteins and virus; the latter are partially proteins. The building blocks of proteins are the amino acids. An amino acid is an organic acid in which the carbon next to the -COOH group (called an alpha carbon) is also bound to an ~ NH, group. In addition, the alpha carbon is bound to a side-chain (R), which is different in each amino acid. HN (side-chain) The aminoacids differ from one another only in the side chain; for example, the R in alanine has one carbon, while in leucine it has four carbons. Table 1.2 shows that the properties of the various amino acids depend on the chemical composition of their side chains; for example, lysine and arginine are basic because their side chains contain an extra amino group, and the acidic amino acids (glutamic and aspartic acids) contain an extra carboxyl group. Scanned with CamScanner