Differing views of the role of selenium in thioredoxin reductase

This review covers three different chemical explanations that could account for the requirement of selenium in the form of selenocysteine in the active site of mammalian thioredoxin reductase. These views are the following: (1) the traditional view of selenocysteine as a superior nucleophile relative to cysteine, (2) the superior leaving group ability of a selenol relative to a thiol due to its significantly lower pK _a and, (3) the superior ability of selenium to accept electrons (electrophilicity) relative to sulfur. We term these chemical explanations as the “chemico-enzymatic” function of selenium in an enzyme. We formally define the chemico-enzymatic function of selenium as its specific chemical property that allows a selenoenzyme to catalyze its individual reaction. However we, and others, question whether selenocysteine is chemically necessary to catalyze an enzymatic reaction since cysteine-homologs of selenocysteine-containing enzymes catalyze their specific enzymatic reactions with high catalytic efficiency. There must be a unique chemical reason for the presence of selenocysteine in enzymes that explains the biological pressure on the genome to maintain the complex selenocysteine-insertion machinery. We term this biological pressure the “chemico-biological” function of selenocysteine. We discuss evidence that this chemico-biological function is the ability of selenoenzymes to resist inactivation by irreversible oxidation. The way in which selenocysteine confers resistance to oxidation could be due to the superior ability of the oxidized form of selenocysteine (Sec-SeO₂ ⁻, seleninic acid) to be recycled back to its parent form (Sec-SeH, selenocysteine) in comparison to the same cycling of cysteine-sulfinic acid to cysteine (Cys-SO₂ ⁻ to Cys-SH).