Question

Describe the synthesis of non-essential amino acids.

Answer 1

Non-essential amino acids:

1. Non-essential means that our body can produce amino acids even though we can't get them from the food we eat.
2. Non-essential amino acids include alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, and tyrosine.

Synthesis of non-essential amino acids:

1. The carbon skeleton of non-essential amino acids is produced from intermediates of the TCA cycle and glycolysis with the exception of phenylalanine 4 is the synthesis of tyrosine, of which 5 from the glycolytic intermediate, 5 from the TCA cycle intermediate.
2. Histidine is obtained from glucose via the pentose phosphate pathway.
3. Arginine is produced from ornithine by the urea cycle.
4. Through the transition, nitrogen is converted to ammonia using glutamic acid as an ammonia donor or, in the case of glutamic acid synthesis, through a reaction catalyzed by glutamate dehydrogenase.