In this article we will discuss about the metabolism of glycine and serine. They are two non-essential amino acids; as we shall see in the following they are inter-convertible, so that for a long time, one did not know which one was formed first and gave rise to the other. It is now known that it is not the simpler [...]
The determination of the base sequence of a nucleic acid is much more difficult than the determination of the sequence of amino acids of a protein, because there are only 4 types of monomers instead of 20. This explains why one began with the determination of the sequences of transfer ribonucleic acids (more than 200 sequences are known); these do [...]
We have seen that some amino acids are utilized by the animal organism as detoxication agents and that products like benzoyl-glycine (hippuric acid) or phenyl-acetyl-glutamine can be found in urine. We will also see that urobilin and stercobilin, the degradation products of hemoglobin (see fig. 7-33), are present in faeces. But generally, nitrogen is eliminated in 3 forms: 1. Ammonia [...]