Amino Acid - History

History

The first few amino acids were discovered in the early 19th century. In 1806, the French chemists Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet isolated a compound in asparagus that was subsequently named asparagine, the first amino acid to be discovered. Another amino acid that was discovered in the early 19th century was cystine, in 1810, although its monomer, cysteine, was discovered much later, in 1884. Glycine and leucine were also discovered around this time, in 1820. Usage of the term amino acid in the English language is from 1898. Proteins were found to yield amino acids after enzymatic digestion or acid hydrolysis. In 1902, Emil Fischer and Franz Hofmeister proposed that proteins are the result of the formation of bonds between the amino group of one amino acid with the carboxyl group of another in a linear structure which Fischer termed peptide.

Read more about this topic:  Amino Acid

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    ... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.
    Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)

    This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.
    Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)

    I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)