Question: what happends when you join the amino acids together?

Sam Lear answered on 20 Jun 2014:

Eventually you end up with chain of amino acids which is (hopefully) the protein you want to make.

During the reactions to make the protein, the amino acids have bits attached to stop reactions happening where they shouldn’t. At the end I remove all these bits and (if everything goes to plan) the protein should ‘fold’ up into the right shape so that it can carry out it’s function properly.

Protein folding is very important in living things. A living thing’s DNA tells the cells which amino acids to put into a protein in the right order, and it’s the arrangement of the amino acids which causes the protein to fold in a particular arrangement. Different amino acids stick to other amino acids on the chain in particular ways, and it is the final 3-dimensional shape of the folded protein that makes it behave in a certain way.

This is why I think proteins are so fascinating – everything that you inherit from your parents in your DNA (such as your eye colour) is basically the result of chains of amino acids folding up into different shapes.