Characterization of Mammalian Selenoproteomes
Gregory V. Kryukov,1
Sergi Castellano,2
Sergey V. Novoselov,1
Alexey V. Lobanov,1
Omid Zehtab,1
Roderic Guigó,2
Vadim N. Gladyshev1*
In the genetic code, UGA serves as a stop signal and a selenocysteine codon, but no computational methods for identifying its coding function are available. Consequently, most selenoprotein genes are misannotated. We identified selenoprotein genes in sequenced mammalian genomes by methods that rely on identification of selenocysteine insertion RNA structures, the coding potential of UGA codons, and the presence of cysteine-containing homologs. The human selenoproteome consists of 25 selenoproteins.
1 Department of Biochemistry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588–0664, USA.
2 Grup de Recerca en Informàtica Biomèdica, Institut Municipal d'Investigació Mèdica, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Centre de Regulació Genòmica, Doctor Aiguader 80, 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: vgladyshev1{at}unl.edu
