Selenides and Diselenides: A Review of Their Anticancer and Chemopreventive Activity

Overview

Journal Molecules

Publisher MDPI

Specialty Biology

Date 2018 Mar 15

PMID 29534447

Citations 44

Authors

Monica Alvarez-Perez

Wesam Ali

Malgorzata Anna Marc

Jadwiga Handzlik

Enrique Dominguez-Alvarez

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Selenium and selenocompounds have attracted the attention and the efforts of scientists worldwide due to their promising potential applications in cancer prevention and/or treatment. Different organic selenocompounds, with diverse functional groups that contain selenium, have been reported to exhibit anticancer and/or chemopreventive activity. Among them, selenocyanates, selenoureas, selenoesters, selenium-containing heterocycles, selenium nanoparticles, selenides and diselenides have been considered in the search for efficiency in prevention and treatment of cancer and other related diseases. In this review, we focus our attention on the potential applications of selenides and diselenides in cancer prevention and treatment that have been reported so far. The around 80 selenides and diselenides selected herein as representative compounds include promising antioxidant, prooxidant, redox-modulating, chemopreventive, anticancer, cytotoxic and radioprotective compounds, among other activities. The aim of this work is to highlight the possibilities that these novel organic selenocompounds can offer in an effort to contribute to inspire medicinal chemists in their search of new promising derivatives.

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