The Alpha carbon refers to the first carbon after the carbon that attaches to the functional group. By extension, the second carbon is the "Beta" carbon, and so on.
This naming standard is sometimes considered to be not in compliance with IUPAC nomenclature (which encourages that carbons be identified by number, not by greek letter), but it nonetheless remains very popular, particularly because it is useful in identifying the relative location of carbons to other functional groups (often a carbonyl). IUPAC nomenclature is a systematic way of naming organic chemical compounds as recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). ... In organic chemistry, a carbonyl group is a functional group composed of a carbon atom double-bonded to an oxygen atom. ...
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The alpha-carbon of an amino acid is significant in protein folding. When describing a protein (which is a chain of amino acids), one often approximates the location of each amino acid as the location its alpha-carbon. Typically alpha-carbons of adjacent amino acids in a protein are about 3.8 Angstroms apart.
In the alpha amino acids, the amino and carboxylate groups are attached to the same carbon, which is called the α–carbon.
The various alpha amino acids differ in which side chain (R group) is attached to their alphacarbon.
The chelating agents EDTA and nitriloacetic acid are alpha amino acids that are industrially synthesized (sometimes from naturally occurring amino acids).
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