Expression of human selenoprotein genes selh, selk, selm, sels, selv, and gpx-6 in various tumor cell lines.

The expression level of the genes encoding six selenocysteine-containing human proteins was determined in the brain, cervical, liver, breast, prostate, and human fibrosarcoma cancer cells. It was found that a high level of expression in all studied types genes of tumor cells is characteristic for selh, selk, and selm genes, encoding SelH, SelK, and SelM proteins, respectively, whereas a complete lack of such expression was shown for gpx-6, selv, and sels genes. The results of this work can be regarded as a major prerequisite for further studies on the role of the three selenoproteins SelH, SelK, and SelM in the regulation of carcinogenesis processes associated with these types of cancer.