Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons^™

Diversity And Functional Plasticity Of Eukaryotic Selenoproteins: Identification And Characterization Of The Selj Family, Sergi Castellano, Alexey V. Lobanov, Charles Chapple, Sergey V. Novoselov, Mario Albrecht, Deame Hua, Alain Lescure, Thomas Lengauer, Alain Krol, Vadim N. Gladyshev, Roderic Guigó

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Selenoproteins are a diverse group of proteins that contain selenocysteine (Sec), the 21st amino acid. In the genetic code, UGA serves as a termination signal and a Sec codon. This dual role has precluded the automatic annotation of selenoproteins. Recent advances in the computational identification of selenoprotein genes have provided a first glimpse of the size, functions, and phylogenetic diversity of eukaryotic selenoproteomes. Here, we describe the identification of a selenoprotein family named SelJ. In contrast to known selenoproteins, SelJ appears to be restricted to actinopterygian fishes and sea urchin, with Cys homologues only found in cnidarians. SelJ shows significant …