The
C-terminus (also known as the
carboxyl-terminus,
carboxy-terminus,
C-terminal tail,
C-terminal end, or
COOH-terminus) is the end of an
amino acid chain (
protein or
polypeptide), terminated by a free
carboxyl group (-COOH). When the protein is translated from messenger RNA, it is created from
N-terminus to C-terminus. The convention for writing peptide sequences is to put the C-terminal end on the right and write the sequence from N- to C-terminus.