4. How to Memorize One and Three Letter Abbreviations of Amino Acids (Part 4)

The origin of the single-letter code for the amino acids The origin of the single-letter code for the amino acids is of historical interest, and in fact, this story may help the student to learn the code. The reason for the code is simple enough–in the very early days of bioinformatics, the very fastest computers were in fact, rather clunky. Dr. Margaret Oakley Dayhoff, arguably the founder of the field of bioinformatics, shortened the code from the three letter designations to the single letter code in an effort to reduce the size of the data files needed to describe the sequence of amino acids in a protein. The listing of amino acids, the three letter and single letter code, and the explanation for the choice of the single letter is given below. Note that there are 20 amino acids commonly found in proteins, and 26 letters in the alphabet. As a result, most of the letters are used. To develop a single-letter code for the amino acids, Dr. Dayhoff attempted to make the code as easy to remember as possible. Of course, if the name of each amino acid began with a different letter, the code would be simple indeed. #aminoAcids #code #abbreviation #threeLettersCode #oneLetterCode