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Updated: Apr 20, 2026

Author Spotlight: Advancing Structural and Biochemical Studies of Proteins Through Thermal Shift Assays
Published on: August 9, 2024
The molecular biology of selenocysteine
Abstract:
Selenium is an essential trace element that is incorporated into 25 human proteins as the amino acid selenocysteine (Sec). The incorporation of this amino acid turns out to be a fascinating problem in molecular biology because Sec is encoded by a stop codon, UGA. Layered on top of the canonical translation elongation machinery is a set of factors that exist solely to incorporate this important amino acid. The mechanism by which this process occurs, put into the context of selenoprotein biology, is the focus of this review.
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