Amino Acids

[Valtun]

Is knowing the one letter abbreviations really necessary...lol

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[I'mJustCurious]

It helps. I think I got one or two questions on a practice full length that require you to know it. Knowing the properties of them is high yield in my opinion.

 

[PNWMedStudent]

Yes. Although it's hit or miss whether you'll need to know the less common AA's by their one letter code, nearly every exam seems to have a question involving identifying acidic/basic AA's, net charge, etc, via the one letter abbreviation.

 

[sunshine859]

Don't get a question wrong because you failed to memorize something as easy as this. Definitely comes up on the exam, typically in the amino acid substitution notation, i.e. T67F

 

[esob]

Yes. A very common example is in the AAMC material where you will be asked questions about AA substitutions on enzymes, and they will be given as D158A. If you don't know the 1 letter abbreviations, you will have no idea how the enzyme has been changed.

 

[westsidestoryz]

Is knowing the one letter abbreviations really necessary...lol

yes. They will give you something like ADEHKQHNTYY and ask what the net charge is in pH 7. (H is neutral in pH 7). Or ask you to something related to Anion-exchange chromatography

 

[Deleted member 737595]

Does it really hurt to memorize the amino acids? Took me all of a half hour spread over a week, with about four minutes a day.

 

[Coltuna]

Just know thing there is to know about the amino acids and save yourself the cussing under your breath when you miss 3-4 (what would have been) easy questions on your MCAT about them.