Question

Humans have what are called essential versus non-essential amino acids. There are also "non-standard" amino acids that exist. What is the difference between these groups?

Answer 1

Essential amino acids are which our body can not synthesize. Non- essential amino acids can only be get by our diet. There are total of 20 standard amino acids out of which 9 are non-essential. Lysine, threonine, valine, leucine, tryptophan, methionine, isoleucine, phenylalanine, and histidine are essential amino acid.

Non-essential amino acids are which our body can synthesize and thus these are not needed to be taken via diet. There are 11 non-essential amino acids. Aspartate, Glutamate, Asparagine, Aanine, Serine, Cysteine, Arginine, Glycine, Glutamine, Proline, and Tyrosine.

Non-standard amino acids are not ribosomically incorporated into proteins, while standard amino acids are incorporated with the ribosomes. Non-standard amino acids occurs naturally in the cells and do not take part in peptide synthesis.