Answer:
- The largest amino acid is Trp.
- Asp is the most acidic. Glu is rather acidic too, but Asp beats it by 0.1 pKa unit.
(In chemistry pKa is a measure for acidity. The lower the pKa, the more acidic.)
- Gly is the smallest.
- Gly is also the one without a chiral center. A carbon is chiral if it has 4 different groups
bound to it. All α-carbons are chiral, and so are the Cβs of Ile and Thr. Gly has
two protons on its Cα and is thus not chiral.
- In proline we find an unusual bond between the backbone N and the side chain Cδ.
- Histidine has two Nitrogens in its side chain that can donate or accept protons (depending on the pH).
And that makes it a very good buffer.
- Ile, Thr, and Val are β-branched. Alifatic means "contains only non-aromatic carbons". So it
is Ile.
- Even though Pro has a ring, it is not aromatic.
- Cys can form Cys-Cys bridges.
- A sequence begins with the N-terminal residue and ends with the C-terminal one. So it is Asp.
- Gly doesn't have a real side chain. So its Φ and Ψ rotations are unrestricted. That makes
it very flexible.
- Proline cannot rotate around its Φ angle because of the extra, ring-forming bond of the
backbone N with the side chain Cδ. That makes it very restricted in its conformations.
- Cysteine can form bridges, can bind metals, can be oxidized. So it is very reactive.
- The last to questions get each time another molecule in the window, so I cannot give the answers here.
The last question in the quiz gives every day another picture so I cannot type the answer...