Proteins are made up of which building blocks?

Proteins are composed of amino acids, which are the fundamental building blocks that link together to form the long chains that constitute proteins. Each amino acid contains an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a variable R group, which is unique to each amino acid. The sequence and specific arrangement of these amino acids determine the structure and function of the protein.

In various biological processes, proteins play crucial roles, including serving as enzymes, structural components, signaling molecules, and immune responses, among others. The process of protein synthesis involves transcription and translation, where the information encoded in DNA is translated into the specific amino acid sequence that makes up a protein.

While carbohydrates, fatty acids, and nucleotides are essential biomolecules that serve different purposes in biological systems—such as energy sources or components of genetic material—they are not involved in the formation of proteins. Carbohydrates primarily provide energy, fatty acids are important for forming lipids, and nucleotides serve as the building blocks of nucleic acids like DNA and RNA. Therefore, amino acids are unequivocally recognized as the building blocks of proteins, making this answer correct.