✅✅Week 4 Protein Design Part I

Answer any of the following questions by Shuguang Zhang:

How many molecules of amino acids do you take with a piece of 500 grams of meat? (on average an amino acid is ~100 Daltons)

To estimate the number of amino acid molecules in 500 grams of meat, follow these steps:

Determine the protein content:
- Meat is about 20% protein on average.
- So, 500 g of meat contains 100 g of protein.
Find the number of amino acid molecules:
- Proteins are made up of amino acids.
- On average, 1 amino acid ≈ 100 Daltons (Da) = 100 g/mol.
- Using Avogadro’s number: 1 mole of amino acids=6.022×1023 molecules
  
  1 mole of amino acids=6.022×1023 molecules1 \text{ mole of amino acids} = 6.022 \times 10^{23} \text{ molecules}
- Moles of amino acids in 100 g of protein: 100 g/mol100 g=1 mole
  
  100 g100 g/mol=1 mole\frac{100 \text{ g}}{100 \text{ g/mol}} = 1 \text{ mole}
- Number of amino acid molecules: 6.022×1023 molecules
  
  6.022×1023 molecules6.022 \times 10^{23} \text{ molecules}

A 500 g piece of meat contains approximately 6.022×10236.022 \times 10^{23}6.022×1023 (or about 600 sextillion) amino acid molecules.

Why humans eat beef but do not become a cow, eat fish but do not become fish?

You become anything by expressing genes for it. Eating something isn't how DNA is expressed (it's digested in the stomach for starters).
If this question refers amino acids or proteins, well, one digests amino acids to proteins and then builds their own amino acids according to their own expressed DNA. So the same as previous point happens.

Why there are only 20 natural amino acids?

Can you make other non-natural amino acids? Design some new amino acids.