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.

A complete analysis of Ammotragus lervia selenoproteins

The paper sections show different relevant aspects of the study

  • Sec and Cys biosynthesis
    Sec and Cys biosynthesis in eukaryotes
    Introduction

    Selenoproteins are a unique group of proteins containing at least one selenocysteine (Sec), which is a selenium-containing amino acid. In fact, this residue is the 21st…

  • Materials and Methods
    Materials and Methods

    In order to achieve this goal, an homology-based approach has been carried out considering the Homo sapiens the phylogenetically closest species…

  • Table of results
    Results

    Authomatically generated table and structure diagram of each gene show our results. Also, a description of all exons predicted for each protein and Seblastian and SECISearh3 output is presented and phylogenia.

  • Discussion section
    Discussion

    During this project, a total of 38 proteins from Homo sapiens (obtained from SelenoDB 1.0) have been compared with the genome of Ammotragus lervia. From these 38 proteins: 25 are described as selenoproteins…

Full Article

Conclusions

A total of 38 proteins from Homo sapiens and 8 proteins from Bos taurus have been compared with an homology-based approach with the genome of Ammotragus lervia using bioinformatic programs. 43 out of the 46 proteins have an homologous in Ammotragus lervia

  • Useful programs developed and used

    The annex describes in detail all the steps carried out by the bash program for the exploration of potential selenoproteins in Ammotragus lervia and all the steps followed for the acquisition of SECIS...

  • Bash exploratory program

    This program performed all needed steps except for both genome and query acquisition and the SECIS prediction. The different steps were…

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  • Use of SECISearch3 and Seblastian

    SECISearch3 looks for SECIS elements and Seblastian use it for search SECIS elements and try to find a selenoprotein…

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  • Python-Bash results publisher

    A Python-Bash program generate Results section in html format and gene structure images…

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