Imino acid

In organic chemistry, an imino acid is any molecule that contains both imine (>C=NH) and carboxyl (-C(=O)-OH) functional groups.

Imino group attached to carbon
Carboxylic acid
The two functional groups that together define an imino acid
Not to be confused with amino acid.

Imino acids are structurally related to amino acids, which have amino group instead of imine—a difference of single vs double-bond between nitrogen and carbon. The simplest example is dehydroglycine.

D-Amino acid oxidase is an enzyme that is able to convert amino acids into imino acids. Also the direct biosynthetic precursor to the amino acid proline is the imino acid (S)-Δ1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate (P5C).

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