NederlandsAmino acid
Amino acids are the small building blocks of which proteins are made. The body uses twenty kinds of them. The order in which they are joined determines which protein results.
An amino acid is a small building block of life. You can compare it to a letter: twenty different letters together form the words and sentences of which proteins are made.
How does it work?
In a cell, amino acids are strung together like beads on a necklace. The order of those beads is fixed in the DNA. Each piece of DNA is thus a blueprint for one protein. A chain of a few dozen to many thousands of amino acids is called a protein.
Each amino acid has its own properties. Some attract water, others repel it, and some carry a charge. As a result, the chain twists and bends into a fixed shape, and that shape determines what the protein can do. An enzyme, for example, cuts something apart, an antibody recognises an intruder, and another protein transports oxygen.
Some amino acids are made by the body itself. Others, the so-called essential amino acids, have to come from food, for example from meat, fish, eggs, pulses or nuts.
Why it matters
Anyone who changes the order of amino acids changes the protein. Researchers make use of that, and AI models are increasingly doing part of the work. Chinese researchers built an AI model that designs proteins from a description in plain language. In four trials the result really did what was asked: give off light, break down plastic, convert alcohol and help capture CO2 (link). The lab of Nobel laureate David Baker used AI to design enzymes that cut other proteins at a pre-chosen spot, including the protein that clumps together in Alzheimer's disease. Some of those enzymes also work in living cells (link).
Amino acids also play a role in everyday life, for example in taste. Chinese researchers found three small protein fragments in the beech mushroom that make salty water taste saltier, the strongest by almost 71 per cent. AI helped with the search. The next step is to test them in real food and to work out how much salt could then be left out (link).
Articles about Amino acid
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Tencent lets AI build its own tools for protein research and mathematics
Tencent has presented the second version of its research AI, Hyra. It delivers not only solutions but also tools that can be used again later. Models for proteins and molecules are already public, so other researchers can now test them themselves.
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AI designs molecular scissors that cut disease proteins at a chosen spot
The lab of Nobel laureate David Baker used AI to design enzymes that cut other proteins at a preselected position, including the protein that clumps together in Alzheimer's disease. Some of those enzymes also work in living cells.
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AI model designs working proteins from a sentence in plain language
Researchers in China have built an AI model that designs proteins from a description in plain language. In four trials, the result actually did what was asked of it: give off light, break down plastic, convert alcohol and help capture CO2.
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Substance from the beech mushroom makes salt taste much saltier
Chinese researchers found three small protein fragments in the beech mushroom that make salt water taste saltier, the strongest by almost 71 per cent. AI helped with the search. The next step is to test them in real food, and to find out how much salt can then be left out.
