Selenium is an essential micronutrient which has a pivotal role in selenoprotein synthesis. This type of proteins, which include one or more selenocysteins in its sequence, have a huge importance in health and are involved in different pathologies. They are extended all across the tree of life.
Selenocysteine (Sec, U) is an amino acid which includes selenium in its structure and is known as the 21st amino acid. It is codified by an UGA codon, whose most common function is to terminate translation, usually encoding a STOP codon. Therefore, a structure named SECIS (SElenoCysteine Insertion Sequence) is needed to include Sec in the protein sequence. This structure is located in the 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) in eukaryotes, and allows the incorporation of this selenium-containing amino acid.
The total of this selenoproteins form the selenoproteome and are very conserved among species. The main aim of this study is to predict and annotate the selenoproteome of Colinus virginianus using bioinformatic tools such as tblastn, exonerate and tcoffee among others. C. virginianus' selenoproteins were predicted through comparison with Gallus gallus selenoproteome as well as Meleagris gallopavo and Human in special cases, obtained from SelenoDB.
The proteins predicted and annotated in this study provide new knowledge about the conservation and characterization of the selenoproteome of this singular bird. More studies are needed in order to characterize and identify selenoproteins of more bird species, since there are only two described in SelenoDB.
Did you know that C. virginianus is also known as northern bobwhite or bobwhite quail? The name ''bobwhite'' derives from its characteristic and worldwide-known whistling call. Listen it in the video below:
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