Analysis of Ammotragus lervia selenoproteins
Selenoproteins represent a portion of the proteome present in the three domains of life. These ones are characterized by presenting at least one residue of selenocysteine (U or Sec), the 21st amino acid which is encoded
by the UGA stop codon. That’s why a complex enzymatic machinery is required to recognize and insert this residue in a protein sequence. Moreover, the presence of a SECIS element in the 3’-UTR region of the
mRNAs that code for selenoproteins is essential to achieve its recognition
The aim of this project has been to predict the selenoproteins and the associated machinery of Ammotragus lervia by bioinformatic methods (such as tBlastn, Exonerate, Genewise, Seblastian and T-Coffee) that
have allowed to compare the genome of this mammal with the selenoproteome of Homo sapiens and Bos taurus. The sequence alignments obtained against these reference species and the characterization of SECIS
candidates (by SECISearch3 online program), have provided a notable approach about the conservation and composition of Ammotragus lervia’s selenoproteome.
The analysis performed has lead to the identification of 23 selenoproteins, 9 Cys-containing homologs and 7 synthesis associated machinery proteins in Ammotragus lervia. These findings represent a notable contribution
to the characterization of the selenoproteome across mammalian and vertebrates organisms.
