ABSTRACT

Selenoproteins are very conserved proteins that contain a selenocysteine amino acid in their structure. They are found among eukaryotic, bacterial and archaeal species. The characterization of these proteins have certainly gain interest because of their role in human health and pathology.

The biosynthesis of selenoproteins is a complicated process in which many proteins are involved. Selenocysteine (Sec) is encoded by UGA which is usually a STOP codon for the majority of the proteins. Due to a conserved stem loop structure sequence called SECIS (Seleno Cystein Insertion Sequence), the correspondence of the codon UGA with Sec is determined. Only SECIS found in the 3' UTR region of the coding gene activate the cellular machinery needed for the translation of the Sec residue.

The aim of this study is to annotate the selenoproteome of the Odocoileus virginianus texanus also known as White-tailed deer. In order to do this, we compared its genome sequence with previously studied and determined selenoproteins from phylogenetically related species. We chose Equus caballus as our reference genome and complemented the study with information from Homo sapiens.

We used a computational pipeline based in bioinformatic programs to compare the selenoprotein sequences extracted from Equus caballus with our genomic data base problem. The following programs and data base were used: TBLASTN, Exonerate, Tcoffee, Seblastian, SelenoDB (version 1.0 for Homo sapiens and 2.0 for Equus caballus and NCBI.

The results obtained show the prediction and annotation of 19 families of selenoproteins, which include selenoproteins, homologous proteins as well as machinery proteins conserved in Odocoileus virginianus texanus.