In biology, the SECIS element is an RNA element around 60 nucleotides in length that adopts a stem-loop structure. This structural motif directs the cell to translate UGA codons as selenocysteines. SECIS elements are thus a fundamental aspect of messenger RNAs encoding selenoproteins, proteins that include one or more selenocysteine residues.
Predicted secondary structure and sequence conservation of SECIS_1. Letters correspond to the IUPAC notation system for nucleotides.
In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of synthesizing a protein.
Universal structure of eukaryotic mRNA, showing the structure of the 5' and 3' UTRs.
mRNA circularisation and regulation
Overview of mRNA decay pathways in the different life domains.