Category: Am-Am

A colorless gas with a very sharp odor. Made both by humans and by nature, ammonia dissolves easily in water and evaporates quickly. Liquid ammonia is found in many household cleaners. Ammonia is irritating to the skin, eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. Exposure to high concentrations in the air can severely burn the skin, eyes, throat, or lungs. In extreme…

Acute myeloid leukemia 1 gene. A protein that is a transcription factor controlling when genes are switched on or off. Runx-1 acts by binding to regulatory sequences — specific sequences of DNA close to the genes they regulate. These DNA sequences, called Runx-1 binding sites, are scattered throughout the human genome, wherever there is a gene…

Acute myeloid leukemia (also known as acute myelogenous leukemia), a quickly progressive malignant disease in which there are too many immature blood-forming cells in the blood and bone marrow, the cells being specifically those destined to give rise to the granulocytes or monocytes, both types of white blood cells that fight infections. In AML, these blasts do not mature…

An antidepressant medication. In some patients with depression, abnormal levels of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters may relate to the depression. Amitriptyline elevates mood by raising the level of neurotransmitters in brain tissue. Amitriptyline is also a sedative that is useful for depressed patients with insomnia, restlessness, and nervousness. It is sometimes used to treat fibromyalgia and symptoms related to chronic pain. Brand names are Elavil and Endep. A…

An enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of an amino group from a donor molecule to a recipient molecule. The donor molecule is usually an amino acid and the recipient molecule is usually an alpha-2 keto acid. Two of the best-known enzymes in this class are serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) and serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase…

The building blocks of polypeptides and proteins.

An amino acid that can be made by humans and so is not essential to the human diet. There are 11 nonessential amino acids: alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, proline, serine, and tyrosine.

An amino acid that cannot be made by humans and so is essential to the human diet. There are 9 essential amino acids: histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine.

One of the amino acids that has a branch chain, namely, Leucine, isoleucine, and valine.

Symbols that stand for the amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Each amino acid has both a three-letter symbol and a single-letter symbol. For example, the three-letter and single-letter symbols for alanine are Ala and A. The three-letter symbols (such as Ala) are much more widely used than the single letter ones (such as…