Is this stuff worth taking or should you just get it from food? Alanine (abbreviated as Ala or A)[2] is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula CH3CH(NH2)COOH. The L-isomer is one of the 20 amino acids encoded by the genetic code. Its codons are GCU, GCC, GCA, and GCG. It is classified as a nonpolar amino acid. L-Alanine is second only to leucine in rate of occurrence, accounting for 7.8% of the primary structure in a sample of 1,150 proteins.[3] D-Alanine occurs in bacterial cell walls and in some peptide antibiotics.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alanine