关键词: 硒蛋白, 硒蛋白质组, 硒代谢, 生物信息学, 比较基因组学

Abstract: Selenium (Se) is an essential trace element for most organisms and it plays an important role in redox homeostasis and is associated with several major diseases. Previously, much efforts have been devoted to experimental investigation of Se metabolism and functions of different selenoproteins. However, with the rapid increase of omics data in recent years, bioinformatic studies have become more and more important in the research of Se. This review introduced recent advances in investigating the metabolism, functions and evolution of Se by bioinformatic theories and methods. These studies identified a large number of new selenoprotein genes as well as the selenoproteomes in a variety of organisms. On the other hand, new Se metabolic pathways and several new genes involved in Se metabolism and homeostasis were also identified, which greatly improved our understanding of Se metabolic network. Furthermore, comparative genomic studies were carried out, which revealed the general distributions of Se metabolic pathways, selenoprotein families and selenoproteomes as well as their evolutionary patterns. It was expected to provide a foundation for investigating the fundamental questions and future directions of Se research.

Key words: selenoprotein, selenoproteome, selenium metabolism, bioinformatics, comparative genomics