Valine is an aliphatic amino acid. It can also be described as propyl-aminoethanoic acid or propyl-aminoacetic acid.
Like all amino acids, it has an amino group (-NH2)
- blue with 2 white balls - at one end, and a carboxylic acid group
(-COOH) - grey, connected to red, and red and white - at the other end.
Between these is the α- (alpha) carbon to which the 'R' group is
attached.
In valine, the 'R' group is a propyl group (-C3H7) -CH(CH3)2.
It is therefore 2 stages up from alanine.