ORIGIN OF TWENTY PROTEINOGENIC AMINO ACIDS

“Protein structure alphabet” – that is a name of L-configuration amino acids, which always or frequently occur in protein hydrolysates. Discovery of proteinogenic amino acids was a quite long process and took many years from 1806 to1935.   According to Wicker and Schmidt a presence of amino acids in protein hydrolysate is considered to be established if at least two researchers derived them independently of each other and if its structure is confirmed by synthetic pathway [1]. Even today these requirements are valid in relation to newly discovered amino acids. Each amino acid, except for a name foreseen by the international nomenclature has its trivial (conventional) name, which points either at the source, from which this amino acid was derived first, or notes some of its special characteristics. The presented work provides chronological review of the history of discovery of twenty proteinogenic amino acids.