peptide
Sign in to savethumb|Drosomycin, an example of a peptide
AI overview
A peptide is a short chain of amino acids, the basic building blocks that make up proteins. Peptides are important in biology because they perform many critical functions in living organisms, such as fighting infections and regulating body processes.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
19 sectionsContents
- Classification
- Chemical synthesis
- Protein-peptide interactions
- Example families
- Antimicrobial peptides
- Tachykinin peptides
- Vasoactive intestinal peptides
- Pancreatic polypeptide-related peptides
- Opioid peptides
- Calcitonin peptides
- Self-assembling peptides
- Other peptides
- Terminology
- Length
- Number of amino acids
- Function
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|Drosomycin, an example of a peptide
Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. A polypeptide is a longer, continuous, unbranched peptide chain. Polypeptides that have a molecular mass of 10,000 Da or more are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. Proteins are polypeptides, i.e. large peptides.