need a help to explain this problem, thank you!

Question

Trypsin cleaves polypeptide chains at the carboxyl side of a lysine or arginine residue. Chymotrypsin cleaves polypeptide chains on the carboxyl side of an aromatic amino acid residue or nonpolar, bulky side chain. Which is more specific? and how?

Answer 1

Hi!

Based on the question, I would think that naming the amino acids themselves (lysine and arginine) is more specific than naming properties of amino acids that trypsin would react with.

The reason that I think that naming aromatic, acidic, nonpolar, and bulky side chains is less specific is that multiple amino acids would fall into these categories. For example, nonpolar amino acids would include anything like glycine, alanine, valine, leucine, and so on.

Let me know if this answers your question.