Galectin-1 Is an Interactive Protein of Selenoprotein M in the Brain

Abstract

Selenium, an essential trace element for human health, mainly exerts its biological function through selenoproteins. Selenoprotein M (SelM) is one of the highly expressed selenoproteins in the brain, but its biological effect and molecular mechanism remain unclear. Thus, the interactive protein of SelM was investigated in this paper to guide further study. In order to avoid protein translational stop, the selenocysteine-encoding UGA inside the open reading frame of SelM was site-directly changed to the cysteine-encoding UGC to generate the SelM′ mutant. Meanwhile, its N terminal transmembrane signal peptide was also cut off. This truncated SelM′ was used to screen a human fetal brain cDNA library by the yeast two-hybrid system. A new interactive protein of SelM′ was found to be galectin-1 (Gal-1). This protein-protein interaction was further verified by the results of fluorescence resonance energy transfer techniques, glutathione S-transferase pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation assays. As Gal-1 plays important roles in preventing neurodegeneration and promoting neuroprotection in the brain, the interaction between SelM′ and Gal-1 displays a new direction for studying the biological function of SelM in the human brain.