Inc. Glossary Index Protein Proteins are some of the most important molecules in cells because they provide the framework through which the cell carries out nearly all its important functions.
Proteins consist of very long strings of individual units called amino acids .
Amino acids are like differently shaped links in a chain in that they all share the same basic chemical structure with the exception of an attached group of atoms called the R-group . The R-group is a small part of the amino acid which changes the size, shape, and chemical properties of an amino acid. All amino acids act in the same general fashion and do essentially the same things, but different R-groups result in different specific behaviors of different types of amino acids. For example, the compositions of some R-groups make certain amino acids attracted to each other while others are not. Cell synthesize proteins by stringing amino acids into very long chains, with the amino acid pattern for each of these chains chains encoded in our DNA .