Identification of the Selenoprotein S Positive UGA Recoding (SPUR) element and its position-dependent activity.

ABSTRACT: Selenoproteins are a unique class of proteins that contain the 21^st amino acid, selenocysteine (Sec). Addition of Sec into a protein is achieved by recoding of the UGA stop codon. All 25 mammalian selenoprotein mRNAs possess a 3' UTR stem-loop structure, the Selenocysteine Insertion Sequence (SECIS), which is required for Sec incorporation. It is widely believed that the SECIS is the major RNA element that controls Sec insertion, however recent findings in our lab suggest otherwise for Selenoprotein S (SelS). Here we report that the first 91 nucleotides of the SelS 3' UTR contain a proximal stem loop (PSL) and a conserved sequence we have named the SelS Positive UGA Recoding (SPUR) element. We developed a SelS-V5/UGA surrogate assay for UGA recoding, which was validated by mass

SUBMITTER: Cockman EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6844570 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature