Amino Acids: Structure and Importance

This lecture introduces the twenty common amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, highlighting their chemical structures, single-letter codes, and DNA codons. It explains the distinction between essential and non-essential amino acids, emphasizing their significance in organic chemistry and everyday compounds. The lecture also covers conformational chirality, atropisomerism, and the Fischer projection, providing insights into molecular chirality and stereochemistry. Furthermore, it discusses diastereoisomers, Fischer projections, and the representation of molecules in 2D. The importance of understanding the conformation of non-cyclic saturated compounds is also explored, focusing on the energy barriers and different conformations of ethane. Lastly, the lecture delves into the conformation of cycloalkanes, analyzing the strain in cyclopropane, cyclobutane, and cyclohexane.