The different amino acids differ in the so called “sidechain” or “R group”. This determines the properties singular to each amino acid: polarity, electric charge, hydrophobicity, volume... It is important to understand these properties since they are the key to the structure and function of a protein.
The diagram groups the proteinogenic amino acids according to several physico-chemical properties. Clicking on the abbreviation for each one you will see its name, its official abbreviations and the three-dimensional model.
