I see the suffix "sine" (seen/sin) a lot, adenosine, cytosine, lysine, tyrosine, etc. Most of where I hear it is in amino acid R groups, but it's usually only the prefix that is recognized as significant.
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8$\begingroup$ Actual suffix is just -ine and it's standard. "s" comes from various (typically greek) words, like tyros - cheese. $\endgroup$– MithoronJan 31, 2018 at 18:28
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1$\begingroup$ Comparing adenine/adenosine and cytosine/cytidine couldn't the argument be made that the suffix was -osine for these two? $\endgroup$– user5713492Feb 1, 2018 at 1:15
1 Answer
According to Textbook of metabolism and metabolic disorders (1964):
The ribosides derived from purines have the suffix -osine; those from pyrimidines, the suffix -idine. The corresponding deoxyribosides, with the exception of thymidine, do not have any such simple designation. Occasionally, instead of, for example, guanine-deoxyriboside, the term deoxy-guanosine is used.
Beyond the more common adenosine and guanosine, there are also:
inosine and
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$\begingroup$ That's a pretty old reference, but what about lysine? Or, what is lys? $\endgroup$– John JoeFeb 2, 2018 at 4:34
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$\begingroup$ @JohnJoe I picked an old reference intentionally, because I am interested in when the convention started. A 2016 book says (page 453) "For purine bases, the suffix -osine is used (adenosine, guanosine)" books.google.com/… "Lysine" has an unrelated word origin bioetymology.blogspot.com/2012/03/lysine.html $\endgroup$– DavePhDFeb 2, 2018 at 11:52
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$\begingroup$ @JohnJoe see also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ine $\endgroup$– DavePhDFeb 2, 2018 at 12:15