amino acids

Cultural  

1. Basic organic molecules (see also organic molecule) that combine to form proteins. Amino acids are made up of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Some examples of amino acids are lysine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan.

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Amino acids are the basic molecular building blocks of proteins.

Example Sentences

Peptides are chains of amino acids that carry signals to cells.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 15, 2026

These units, known as codons, tell cells which amino acids to use when building proteins.

From Science Daily • Apr. 9, 2026

Ingest a small but powerful tab of L.A.-grown protein-rich amino acids optimized to enhance their longevity and fat-burning properties, and let the aminos take you away.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 1, 2026

Technically speaking, peptides are short chains of amino acids that act as messengers in the body.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 22, 2026

A quadruplet code would have 256 permutations—far more than needed to encode twenty amino acids.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee