There are non-polar amino acids and polar amino acids.
From a Stanford University educational website called "Folding at
Home:"
http://folding.stanford.edu/education/AminAcid.html
"The non-polar amino acids (shown here) include: alanine, cysteine,
glycine, isoleucine, leucine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline,
tryptophan, tyrosine and valine."
"The polar amino acids include: arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid
(or aspartate), glutamine, glutamic acid (or glutamate), histidine,
lysine, serine, and threonine."
To answer your question specifically, "Polar side chains contain
groups that are either charged at physiological pH or groups that are
able to participate in hydrogen bonding."
Conversely, "Non polar side chains consist mainly of hydrocarbon. Any
functional groups they contain are uncharged at physiological pH and
are incapable of participating in hydrogen bonding."
Google search strategy:
Keyword searches,
"amino acid polar groups"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amino+acid+polar+groups
,
"amino acids" ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amino+acids&btnG=Google+Search
and
"amino acid biochemistry"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=amino+acid+biochemistry
Good luck in continuing your inquiries!
~omiscientbeing |