Dehydroalanine

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rare amino acid derivative containing a carbon-carbon double bond, formed in certain peptides after the loss of water from serine or cysteine
2. An unsaturated, non-standard amino acid found in some natural peptides, produced when a serine or cysteine residue loses water
3. A dehydrated alanine-related residue with a reactive double bond, occurring in certain bacterial and lantibiotic peptides as a biochemical intermediate

Etymology: Dehydroalanine is a chemical compound, and its name is a plain piece of chemical nomenclature rather than a story with a famous coiner. It is built from "dehydro-", meaning the loss of hydrogen atoms from a molecule, joined to "alanine", the name of the amino acid whose structure it modifies. Alanine itself takes its name from "aldehyde" and "ammonia", reflecting the chemistry from which it was first described. Removing two hydrogen atoms from alanine creates a carbon-carbon double bond, which is why the compound is so reactive. That reactivity explains its appeal to chemists: it serves as a versatile intermediate for attaching new groups to amino acids, including in the modification of proteins.