Is in our nucleic acids, proteins, and neurotransmitters. How do they get there? nearly 80% of the atmosphere is nitrogen, is this the origin of the amino stuff in our bodies? What is the process of a plant to harvest this nitrogen? How do we digest it from plant matter?

 

trying to find the answer elsewhere because i am impatient, wikipedia tells me amines are derivatives of ammonia. So i can change my question to, where does the ammonia come from, and how does a plant process it?

IIRC, it`s the Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum that are responsible for protein synthesis and manipulation, Proteins contain the Amino groups (acids).

 

I`m sure someone else will help a lot more though, it`s been YEARS since I did Bio.

Several types of bacteria are able to fix nitrogen, also, a little bit of usable nitrogen is produced by lightning. Of course, much of the nitrogen we eat nowadays may be from man-made fertilizers.

Is in our nucleic acids, proteins, and neurotransmitters. How do they get there?

Well, N is one of these four that make 98% of our all, so I'm not surprised it's there too, though I don't know how. But according to Wiki, nitrogen in neurotransmitters if found in form of NO, and is found in those called 'gaseous including transmitters'!

 

What is the process of a plant to harvest this nitrogen? How do we digest it from plant matter?

Only few plants have the ability to use the nitrogen from the air, and that is due to some bacterias they have in their roots, and other plant who don't use nitrogen from [ce]NH4+[/ce] slats, through a process called (IIRC) nitrification.

Most amino acids have it as it is a NH4+ is positive and therefore ionic interactions can occur however these do little to stabilise proteins as there is a high dielectric constant, however they are used in cases such as binding signal sequences to receptors so they can be endocytosed into the endoplasmic reticulum, primarily cause they are positive.

 

To find out where it comes from look up the nitrogen cycle in google, that will tell you, most of it is fixed from N2 in the air to NO2- by bacteria, this can be for there own use or in the case of marren grass they are stored in legumes in the roots and it means that it can grow in inhospitable environments such as sand dunes and therefore show primary succession.