Diamino acids

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Diamino acids , more precisely diamino carboxylic acids , are organic compounds and count among the amino acids . Diamino acids contain at least one carboxy group  (–COOH) and two amino groups  (–NH 2 ).

Biochemical significance

Asparagine , glutamine and lysine are proteinogenic diamino acids, which means that they are the molecular building blocks of proteins along with 17 other amino acids . The three diamino acids mentioned are encoded by codons of the genetic material and are therefore also among the canonical amino acids .

Like 2,6-diaminopimelic acid, ornithine is a non-proteinogenic diamino acid.

In biochemistry , diamino acids are of some interest. Diamino acids are used for the synthesis of peptide nucleic acids such as daPNA. Such artificially produced peptide nucleic acids in turn form duplexes with individual DNA and RNA strands and are therefore not only considered DNA analogues, but are also possible reconstructions of what is probably the first genetic material on earth. The corresponding diamino acids such as 2,3-diaminopropanoic acid were detected in the Murchison meteorites and in artificial comets .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Egholm M., Buchardt O., Christensen L., Behrens C., Freier SM, Driver DA, Berg RH, Kim SK, Norden B., Nielsen PW (1993): PNA hybridizes to complementary oligonucleotides obeying the Watson-Crick hydrogen bonding rules In: Nature Vol. 365, pp. 566-568 ( doi : 10.1038 / 365566a0 ).
  2. ↑ Meierhenrich UJ, Munoz Caro GM, Bredehöft JH, Jessberger EK, Thiemann W. (2004): Identification of diamino acids in the Murchison meteorite In: PNAS Vol. 101, pp. 9182-9186 ( doi : 10.1073 / pnas.0403043101 ) .
  3. ↑ Munoz Caro GM, Meierhenrich UJ, Schutte WA, Barbier B., Arcones Segovia A., Rosenbauer H., Thiemann W., Brack A., Greenberg JM (2002): Amino acids from ultraviolet irradiation of interstellar ice analogues In: Nature Vol. 416, pp. 403-406 ( doi : 10.1038 / 416403a ).

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