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Glite Dictionary
to transaminate

to transaminate

9.9
To move an amino group, the small part of an amino acid, from one molecule to another
  • verb
  • /trænˈzæməˌneɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : transaminar
  • In the metabolic pathway, the enzyme helps to transaminate a keto acid to create new amino acids.

Examples

  • The reaction leads to the formation of two molecules of glutamate, one of which can be recycled back to GS and another which can be transaminated to form other amino acids.

    Academic text (1993)

  • So first you build the alpha keto acid, and then you transaminate that alpha keto acid from glutamate to generate the amino acid.

  • To elaborate, when ingested, leucine is transaminated into KIC 8, which appears to decrease muscle breakdown 9-11.

    Blog text (23)

  • During the process of protein synthesis, our bodies transaminate various substrates to produce essential amino acids.

  • Scientists discovered how to transaminate simple compounds to enhance amino acid production in plants.

Surface Forms

transaminate infinitive
transaminated past
transaminated past participle
transaminating present participle
transaminates third person singular

Morphology

transaminate = aminate (semi-transparent) = trans + amine + ate

Formed by prefixing 'trans-' to 'aminate', which directly signals transfer of an amino group, but the morpheme 'amine' and the verb 'aminate' are technical chemical terms not familiar to average learners.

Etymology

Transaminate comes from the prefix trans- meaning 'across' and the part aminate from amino, which means 'a nitrogen group' as in amino acid. So, to transaminate is to move an 'amino' group from one molecule to another.