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In organic chemistry and biochemistry, the symbol R denotes a side chain. (The symbol in fact stands for radical.) This is useful when you wish to write a single formula to denote a number of different compounds with a certain structure in common.

Example

All the amino acids that are encoded by DNA have this component: -CH(NH2).CO2H

A convenient way to write the formula for all these amino acids is:

R-CH(NH2).CO2H

where

R = hydrogen (H-) in the amino acid glycine

R = a methyl group (CH3-) in alanine

and so on.

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