MCAT AAMC biochemistry section bank question 79

[joe_1395]

Can anybody help me with this question? How was I supposed to know that Tryptophan was the one being replaced?

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[andelJ94]

This is simple nomenclature from biochemistry the AAMC expects us to know (I had not seen it till the MCAT either).

W140L means the W residue at position 140 has been replaced with a Leucine. The AAMC expects us to know ALL the amino acid structures, properties, 3-letter and 1-letter abbreviations.

Memorize this information!

 

[joe_1395]

This is simple nomenclature from biochemistry the AAMC expects us to know (I had not seen it till the MCAT either).

W140L means the W residue at position 140 has been replaced with a Leucine. The AAMC expects us to know ALL the amino acid structures, properties, 3-letter and 1-letter abbreviations.

Memorize this information!

Thanks! I know my amino acids, I just dint know what the numbers meant, much less that they were being switched!

 

[aldol16]

Thanks! I know my amino acids, I just dint know what the numbers meant, much less that they were being switched!

It's crucial that you know both the one- and three-letter codes for the amino acids. And yeah - I guess it's not entirely fair to assume that you know the notation for mutations, but it's quite common in biology so you might have come across it before in some biology course you've taken. In any case, the notation always is AXXXB, where A is the amino acid being switched out and B is the replacement amino acid. The XXX represents the amino acid number (1, 2, 3, etc. from the N-terminus).