IUBio

carbon content of proteins?

Reno T. Nguyen reno at cbl.umces.edu
Mon Mar 16 09:08:20 EST 1998


On Wed, 11 Mar 1998, Jonathan Walton wrote:

> Can anyone tell me a generally accepted average value for the % (by
> weight) of carbon in proteins?  The value of 15-16% for N is generally
> used, but how about carbon?  And (related question that would give the
> answer) is there is a program that will calculate the elemental
> composition of a protein?
> Thanks,

I've only determined the %C for Rubisco (47%) using a C and N analyzer.
The %N was 13%. I'm not aware of any program that would calculate the
elemental composition of a protein after entry of it's amino acid
composition. I have also determined the average %C and %N for the protein
amino acids usually analyzed (asp, glu, ser, his, gly, thr, arg, ala, tyr,
met, val, phe, ile, leu, lys) to be 46% and 14%, respectively.  These
average values for the amino acids should be similar to those for many
proteins.

Reno 

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Reno T. Nguyen
Chesapeake Biological Laboratory                 /----\  /-----\   /
Univ. MD Center for Environmental Science      /        /      /  /  
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Solomons, MD 20688                         /          /       \ /
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E-mail: reno at cbl.umces.edu
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