Speciation and subcellular location of Se-containing proteins in human liver studied by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and hydride generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometric detection

Speciation of Se-containing proteins in the subcellular fractions of human liver was studied by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) followed by hydride generation-atomic fluorescence spectrometric (HG-AFS) detection. It was found that about 24 kinds of Se-containing proteins existed in subcellular fractions of normal human liver. The molecular weights (MW) of the subunits were mostly in the range 20-30 kDa and 50-80 kDa. Major Se-containing protein fractions at 61 kDa and 21 kDa are probably selenoprotein P and glutathione peroxidase, respectively. The 54 kDa protein is probably a thioredoxin reductase, which is presented in nuclei, mitochondria, lysosome, microsome and cytosol. We noticed that the Se-containing protein with the lowest MW of 9.3 kDa only existed in lysosome. Most of the proteins have not been identified and would require further investigation to characterize them. The specific subcellular distributions of different Se-containing proteins suggest that they could play important biological roles in each organelle.