title: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii selenocysteine tRNA[Ser]Sec.
abstract: Eukaryotic selenocysteine (Sec) protein insertion machinery was thought to be restricted to animals, but the occurrence of both Sec-containing proteins and the Sec insertion system was recently found in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a member of the plant kingdom. Herein, we used RT-PCR to determine the sequence of C. reinhardtii Sec tRNA[Ser]Sec, the first non-animal eukaryotic Sec tRNA[Ser]Sec sequence. Like its animal counterpart, it is 90 nucleotides in length, is aminoacylated with serine by seryl-tRNA synthetase, and decodes specifically UGA. Evolutionary analyses of known Sec tRNAs identify the C. reinhardtii form as the most diverged eukaryotic Sec tRNA[Ser]Sec and reveal a common origin for this tRNA in bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes.
authors.affiliation: Section on the Molecular Biology of Selenium, Basic Research Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
authors.forename: Mahadev
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Bradley A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.forename: Sergey V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Novoselov
authors.forename: Donald P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Weeks
authors.forename: Vadim N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Gladyshev
authors.forename: Dolph L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Hatfield
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D016825:Chlamydomonas reinhardtii / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D012346:RNA, Transfer, Amino Acyl; C112705:selenocysteinyl-tRNA