Question

Aspartame, the artificial sweetener is made by a dipeptide of amino acids……
(A) Aspartic acid and Phenylalanine
(B) Aspartic acid and Phenylhydrazine
(C) Alanine and Glycine
(D) Aspartic acid and Glutamic acid

Answer 1

Hint: The Chemical structure of Aspartame is as shown below. You can identify the amino acid present in the given structure and have the answer.



Complete step by step solution:
As you have seen the Molecular structure in the Hint part, the molecule Aspartame contains a Peptide Bond. Two amino acids can form a Peptide bond. The \[ - CONHR - \]linkage is called Peptide linkage or peptide bond.

As you have seen in the above reaction if we break carbon-nitrogen bond we get two compounds. One is Aspartic acid and another will be Methyl ester of Phenylalanine. Here, we are obtaining Methyl ester of Phenylalanine because Phenyl-alanine moiety is present in Aspartame as its methyl ester form.
 So, we can say that Aspartame is a dipeptide made up of two amino acids namely, Aspartic acid and Phenylalanine.

So, Correct Option is (A) Aspartic acid and Phenylalanine.

Additional Information:
Let’s see the structures of all compounds given in the options.

Here, note that all the compounds are Amino acids except Phenyl Hydrazine because it is not an amino acid as it does not contain both carboxylic acid and amine group. So, we can rule out option (B) as it contains Phenyl Hydrazine.
- An amino acid is an organic compound that contains both carboxylic acid and amine functional groups.

Note:
-Structures of Aspartic acid and Glutamic acid differ by just \[ - C{H_2} - \] units.
- Whenever a compound is said to be dipeptide, it involves two amino acids. So, we should choose two amino acids as their constituents.