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Definition of Essential amino acid

1. Noun. An amino acid that is required by animals but that they cannot synthesize; must be supplied in the diet.

Definition of Essential amino acid

1. Noun. (amino acid) One of the naturally occurring amino acids that the human body cannot synthesize, and so must be provided by dietary protein. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Medical Definition of Essential amino acid

1. Those amino acids that cannot be synthesised by an organism and must therefore be present in the diet. The term is often applied anthropocentrically to those amino acids required by humans (Ileu, Leu, Lys, Met, Phe, Thr, Try, & Val), though rats need two more (Arg & His). This entry appears with permission from the Dictionary of Cell and Molecular Biology (11 Mar 2008)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Essential Amino Acid

Literary usage of Essential amino acid

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. The Journal of Biological Chemistry by American Society of Biological Chemists (1917)
"Cystine is regarded as probably being an essential amino-acid. Its removal was effected with acetic acid, but was not quantitative. ..."

2. The Journal of Home Economics by American Home Economics Association (1915)
"Wheat contains one protein, gliadin, which is adequate for growth; it lacks the essential amino acid lysin; when this is added to gliadin food, growth takes ..."

3. Nutrition and Clinical Dietetics by Herbert Swift Carter, Paul Edward Howe, Howard Harris Mason (1921)
"If the ingested protein contains a proportion of any essential amino-acid that is less than the quantity needed by the body or lacks the acid entirely, ..."

4. The Newer Knowledge of Nutrition: The Use of Food for the Preservation of by Elmer Verner McCollum (1922)
"McCollum, Simmonds and Pitz (51) have shown that, poor as are the proteins of the maize kernel in lysin, this is not the essential amino-acid which is ..."

5. Science by American Association for the Advancement of Science (1883)
"Cystine (or cysteine) thus may be an essential amino acid in the immature human. In the normal adult human, about 90 percent of ingested methionine is ..."

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