Amino Acids

So I am (trying) to study for this crazy hard test in MCB. It sucks b/c all the stuff we were given in lecture is all basically review (proteins, dna, pH, etc), yet the test and hw questions are very abstract and take a lot of "application" and "sythesis" of knowledge- ughm. Anywho, so now I've decided to stay in tonite to at least put a small dent in the material. However, I get easily distracted and end up on the computer, for example...blogging. I decided to take a break for a bit, but I'm not gonna let myself fully shut down. Right now, I'm trying to learn the amino acids, so I'll compromise between work and play by reviewing all 20 amino acids (by memory) in this post! Here it goes:

HYDROPHOBIC: Leucine, Isoleucine, Methionine, Proline, Valine, Alanine, and Glycine; HYDROPHILIC: Glutamine, Cysteine, Asparagine, Threonine, and Serine; ACIDIC: Aspartate and Glutamate; BASIC: Histidine, Argniine, and Lysine; AROMATIC: Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, and Tryptophan.

Woot. That wasn't so bad. However, we need to also know each amino acid's 3-letter abbr, 1-letter abbr, and overall structure. This would explain the picture. It's kinda fun drawing all the compounds- there is some sort of aesthetic and geometric beauty when laying all the intricacies out, but it's still a b*tch trying to memorize them...

Tyrosine, an Aromatic. Tyr. Y.

-Peace and Pleasant Dreams