Aspartic Acid
Aspartic acid, also known as aspartate, is an amino acid with an acidic side chain. At normal pH it usually carries a negative charge. This is due to a missing proton from the -COOH (carboxylic acid) group. Aspartic acid has the chemical formula HOOCCH(NH2)CH2. Aspartic acid along with glutamic acid is the only acidic amino acid with a pka of 3.86.
The
amino acid has both ‘L’ and ‘D’ isomers, and the L-isomer of aspartate is one of the 22 proteinogenic amino acids (those that are the building blocks of proteins). Most chemical syntheses will produce a ‘DL-aspartic acid’ which is a racemic mixture.
It is coded for by
the three letter code Asp and the one letter code D.
academics.keene.edu/rblatchly/Chem220/hand/npaa/aawpka.htm