Studying selenoproteins in

Anas zonorhyncha

Martínez M, Mira S, Pérez A, Rill A, Villaró C

• HOME
• ABSTRACT
• INTRODUCTION
  Selenium Selenoproteins Selenoproteins biosynthesis Selenoproteins families Selenoproteins machinery Anas zonorhyncha
• METHODS
  Queries acquisition Manual prediction of selenoproteins Automatic prediction of selenoproteins
• RESULTS
  Selenoproteins and machinery results Selenoproteins analysis Selenoproteins machinery analysis
• DISCUSSION
  Selenoproteins Selenoproteins machinery
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CONTACT

Conclusions

After having analyzed and discussed all our results, we have been able to reach some conclusions.

Firstly, it can be concluded that these selenoproteins have been identified in Anas zonorhyncha's genome: DIO1, DIO2, DIO3, MSRB1, SelP, SelT, SelU1, TXNRD1, TXNRD2, TXNRD3, SelK, SelN, SelO and SelPa.

In addition, there are four more proteins which are plausible to be in Anas zonorhyncha's genome but we can not ensure it because of technical reasons previously explained, which are GPx3, SelI, SelS and SelPb.

Regarding Cys-containing homologous proteins, we conclude that Anas zonorhyncha has GPx7 and GPx8. Nevertheless, we can not guarantee MSRB3's presence in its genome.

Finally, concerning to the proteins which are involved in the selenoprotein synthesis, we conclude that Anas zonorhyncha contains these selenoprotein machinery genes: eEFsec, SBP2, SECp43, PSTK, SECS and SEPHS.

In general, the results obtained in this project are reliable. However, we have observed that the final parts of the sequences, where selenocysteines residues are located, are well conserved but the initial parts do not usually align optimally.

As we mentioned in the discussion, SelenoDB database contained several mistakes. Even though we tried to minimize the errors by taking some genomes from Ensembl, we encourage to perform future studies using from the beginning some database whose genomes are correctly annotated.

Also, for further analysis of Anas zonorhyncha's selenoproteines, a closer specie in the phylogenetic scale should be used for genome comparisons. For instance, Anas platyrhynchos could be a great choice, so it would be interesting to repeat this same study as soon as the selenoproteome of this other duck is sequenced and introduced into databases.

While working on this project we have realized that, although knowledge about mammalian selenoproteins is increasing, the bird selenoproteome remains considerably less understood. Thus, more research needs to be done in order to fully understand its important role in these animals.