Translations:Amino acid/11/en

Chirality

The carbon atom next to the carboxyl group is called the α–carbon. In proteinogenic amino acids, it bears the amine and the R group or side chain specific to each amino acid. With four distinct substituents, the α–carbon is stereogenic in all α-amino acids except glycine. All chiral proteogenic amino acids have the L configuration. They are "left-handed" enantiomers, which refers to the stereoisomers of the alpha carbon.