The Progress
in Mechanism of Selenoprotein Biosynthesis
JIANG Zhi-Hua, MU Ying, LI Wei-Jia, YAN
Gang-Lin, LUO Gui-Min*
( Key Laboratory for Molecular Enzymology and Engineering of Ministry
of Education, Jilin University, Changchun
130023, China )
Abstract As the
twenty-first amino acid, selenocysteine can be co-translationally incorporated
into the polypeptide chain at UGA codon in the coding region of selenoprotein
mRNA. The incorporation of selenocysteine needs a cis-acting element
SECIS and four gene products: SelA, SelB, SelC and SelD. The position of SECIS
in the mRNA of prokaryote and its structural features are greatly different
from that of eukaryote. The researchers have made exploration in selenoprotein
engineering by virtue of the mechanism of selenocysteine incorporation in Escherichia
coli.
Key words selenoprotein£» selenocysteine£» SECIS£» selenoprotein synthesis
*Corresponding authors: Tel,
86-431-8922331-3698; Fax, 86-431-8923907; e-mail, [email protected]