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Reactions of Amino Acids

  • Page ID
    14648
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    • Acid-base Chemistry of Amino Acids
      Amino acids by themselves have amino (pKa ~9.0-10.5) and carboxyl groups (pKa ~2.0-2.4) that can be titrated. At neutral pH the amino group is protonated, and the carboxyl group is deprotonated. The side chains of acid and basic amino acids, and some polar amino acids can also be titrated.
    • Acid-Base Reactions of Amino Acids
      This page looks at what happens to amino acids as you change the pH by adding either acids or alkalis to their solutions. For simplicity, the page only looks at amino acids which contain a single -NH2 group and a single -COOH group.
    • Amino Acid Reactions
      Amino acids react with each other in a typical acid-base neutralization reaction to form a salt.

    Thumbnail: 3D model of L-tryptophan. (Public Domain; Benjah-bmm27).


    Reactions of Amino Acids is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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