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Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Amino Acid Asparagine Flag - N Flag or Asn Flag

The flag for Asparagine uses the colours red, green, white, and purple.  The two white dots represent the number of Carbon atoms in the R-Group.  Since the field is purple this means that the R-Group has Nitrogen and Oxygen.   Reason being Nitrogen is usually represented by the colour blue, as the sky is blue and Nitrogen is the most dominant gas.  Oxygen is associated with red since blood turns bright red when oxygenated.

The two vertical stripes by the hoist are red and green which is colour coded to the letter N, which is the one letter abbreviation for Asparagine.  Asparagine also has a three letter abbreviation: Asn.  Red is coded to 1 and green is coded to 4.  Together they make 14; and N is the 14th letter in the alphabet.

Asparagine was first discovered in France in 1806 by two French chemists: Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet.  As amino acid N suggests it was discovered in asparagus.  Asn was in fact the first amino acid that was isolated.





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