Missing (again)

[SteelCamel]

Having finally figured out Cinelli's puzzle, here's a similar one. Possibly a bit more obscure...

What's missing from this list?

CL---ED
UN---ED
NE---WS
---RO
SE---AIL
---ON
---PHS
PAR---
O---
S---TH
---ANJ
---E
W---KY
IM---VE
M---IN
WH---
C---MITY
---TOPHORA
F---WATTER
U---
---EE

Note - there is one proper name in there, and another that might not pass muster under Scrabble rules. And I'll be seriously impressed if you manage to answer with a dictionary word. To save you counting, there are 21 items in the list above.

[SteelCamel]

A clarification;
---ANJ is a proper name
---TOPHORA is the debatable word - it's in at least some dictionaries but is arguably a name.

[SteelCamel]

OK, this maybe is a bit too obscure...
Some hints if you want, start from the top and read until you think you're getting there:

*********

I'm looking for 22 three-letter items, unsurprisingly. 21 of these complete the words given, and there's one missing. This is a definitive list of 22, there's only one set of three letters that will complete the list. As mentioned, I don't think you'll be able to put this into a word - and even a proper name will be a challenge.

********

The solution is from the field of science. The necessary information is in Wikipedia, though if you know which page to look at you've already solved the puzzle.

*********

Each of the three letter items represents something. 20 of them can also be represented by three letters in a different way - some of them in more than one way - and 2 cannot directly.

*********

F---WATTER ought to be easy to find the missing letters. There's a connection between Jurassic Park (the first film) and what the three letters represent here. If the plan had worked, there wouldn't have been any more films...

*********

[cinelli]

I got FLYSWATTER but I really needed the hints, for which thank you. In trying to find a solution I was led to a site which lists all words ending TOPHORA. For information there are just four 10-letter words which classify seals, snails and spiders. Interesting.

I think I have cracked it but am still trying to fit the 3-letter items to the gaps, and so find the missing one.

Cinelli

[cinelli]

I think I have a solution. Spoiler:

The words are

clASPed        TYRe
unGLUed        wHISky
nePHEws        imPROve
METro          mARGin
seASNail       whILE
PYLon          cALAmity
GLYphs         CYStophora
parSEC         fLYSwatter
oVAL           uSER
sLEUth         THRee
TRPanj

What do ASP, GLU, etc have in common? They are 21 of the 22 3-letter abbreviations for amino acids. (Good old Wikipedia.) What is the 22nd? GLN. But I can't find a proper word containing these letters, only acronyms. Perhaps I am wrong. The best I can offer is

---A
GLNA, Great Lakes of North America.

Cinelli

[SteelCamel]

Indeed, that's exactly the solution I had in mind, well done.

I'd got it 90% done when I realised that I couldn't make words for two of them - so i cheated slightly by putting in a small town in Croatia, and leaving you to find the one I couldn't do anything with.

An explanation of the hints:

The solution is from the field of science. The necessary information is in Wikipedia, though if you know which page to look at you've already solved the puzzle.
Specifically, the page "Proteinogenic amino acid", which will give you the exact list needed to complete the puzzle.

Each of the three letter items represents something. 20 of them can also be represented by three letters in a different way - some of them in more than one way - and 2 cannot directly.
The other way of representing them is by how they are encoded as DNA - also three letters but only using G A T and C (plus wildcards). 20 of them are represented by a three base-pair code, the other two are represented more indirectly.

F---WATTER ought to be easy to find the missing letters. There's a connection between Jurassic Park (the first film) and what the three letters represent here. If the plan had worked, there wouldn't have been any more films...
FLYSWATTER, of course, giving LYS - Lysine. The "Lysine contingency" was supposed to make Jurassic Park's dinosaurs dependent on human provided food so escaped dinosaurs couldn't survive. If it worked as planned, when the park was abandoned the dinosaurs would have died (and the sequels would not exist). Needless to say, it didn't work....