Amino acids: properties
· Sung to the Beverly Hillbillies melody:

Come an' listen to my story about the a-mi-nos
Five Al-i-phats kick off our show
Glycine, Alanine, Valine and then
Leucine and Iso make up half of ten

Well the next thing you know are three aromats
phenylalanine(F) is right off the bat
tYrosine has alcohol next to its ring
And tryptophan(W) has indole double ring thing.

Sulfur in Cysteine; it loves to bond
Sulfur Methionine is much more a snob
Alcoholic Serine, well wouldn't you know,
And Threonine's OH gives a warm glow.

Acid-aspartic(D) and glutamic(E) are ionized
With pK of 4, their protons are lysed,
asparagine(N) and glutamine(Q) play a different role
With amides they're neutral but they both have poles

lysine(K) and aRginine are the basic kind,
But Histidine's imidazole can't make up its mind,
Proline, the last one, coming at the end
It's imine, an oddball, proteins use to bend.