The progress in mechanism of selenoprotein biosynthesis

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.