Phun with Peptides - Asparagine

I spend most of my days in lab staring at data from protein structures. Proteins, as you learned in school, are made up of amino acids - 20 flavors of them. That's not too many, and you would think that after working with these 20 guys for almost 4 years now I would know a thing or two about them, like their physico-chemical properties, their story of discovery and what their favorite ice cream flavor is. Well I don't, so to rectify the situation I'll try to find out a little more about these little guys, and share anything interesting with you.


I'll start with Asparagine, as you're probably more familiar with this amino acid than you know.


Asparagine (Asn, N) is a pretty run-of-the-mill amino acid. It's average in size, polar but not charged, and is a non-essential amino acid that your body can live without. However it's not always the electrostatic properties and size that matter. Asparagine was the first amino acide ever to be isolate (back in 1806) from... you guessed it, asparagus juice! And if you know your asparagus, then you know that when you eat a lot of it at that fancy Italian restaurant you are committing to at least several smelly trips to the urinal over the next half a day or so. It's the metabolite products of asparagine that so pungently hit some people's smell receptors.

KoXa
Asparagine can also be as pleasing to the eye as it is displeasing to the nose. On its own it's heavily studied as a component of the nervous system, and makes quite pretty crystals, like this one imaged by photomicrographs:

Microscopy UK

Let's have a chef have the last word though...

"You know, when you get your first asparagus, or your first acorn squash, or your first really good tomato of the season, those are the moments that define the cook's year. I get more excited by that than anything else."- Mario Batali