The role of the micronutrient, selenium, in human cancers associated with chronic inflammations and persistent infections is poorly understood. Peritoneal plasmacytomas (PCTs) in strain BALB/c (C), the premier experimental model of inflammation-dependent plasma cell transformation in mice, may afford an opportunity to gain additional insights into the significance of selenium in neoplastic deve...

Selenium is an essential trace nutrient required for the synthesis of selenoproteins such as glutathione peroxidase and thioredoxin reductase, the major forms of selenium in the endothelium that have important functions relevant to inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Selenium deficiency is associated with cardiomyopathy and sudden cardiac death in animals, and a low selenium status is asso...

Introduction Selenium is an essential element to human health at low levels (2080 μg/L), but becomes toxic at elevated levels. Selenium exists in different forms that determine its toxicity and bioavailability. Current research is now focusing on the determination of individual selenium species or seleniumcontaining compounds. This can be done using ICP-MS as a selenium-specific detector for a ...

Clostridium kluyveri incorporates selenium as selenomethionine into its acetoacetyl-CoA thiolase when grown in media containing normal sulfur-to-selenium ratios. Antibodies raised against the purified enzyme permitted quantitative immunoprecipitation of thiolase from crude cell extracts and thus facilitated the systematic analysis of the effects of wide variation in sulfur-to-selenium ratios on...

Selenium is an essential micronutrient for humans, and seafood is one of the major selenium sources, as well as red meat, grains, eggs, chicken, liver and garlic. A substantial proportion of the total amount of selenium is present as selenium containing imidazole compound, selenoneine, in the muscles of ocean fish. In order to characterize the selenium content in seafood, the total selenium lev...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate selenium dietary intake and nutritional status of patients with phenylketonuria. METHODS The study prospectively evaluated 54 children with phenylketonuria, from 4 to10 years old. The study was performed before and after the use of a selenium-supplemented amino acid mixture. The second phase of the study was performed after, at least, 90 days of use of the supplementatio...

Pharmacokinetics Selenium levels in the body are largely dependent on the amount of the element in the diet. However, the form of selenium within the diet has an important influence on absorption. L-(+)selenomethionine is readily absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and is significantly better absorbed and retained in the body than inorganic selenium in the form of selenite. L-(+)selenometh...

Two types of mechanisms are considered in this discussion of the interactions between compounds of selenium and those of cadmium or mercury: one based on a direct chemical reaction between compounds of these elements and the other based on metabolic changes induced by selenium administration and modifying the dose-effect relationship indirectly, without a reaction between selenium and the metal...

The common oxidation states of selenium found in the environment are selenides (-2), selenium (0), selenites (+4), and selenates (+6). The reduction of selenium oxyanions viz., selenate and selenite to insoluble Se which is less toxic form of selenium, has been reported in numerous bacteria and in some cases thought to be a detoxification mechanism [1]. Selenium reduction mechanisms in anaerobi...

In this issue, Stranges and colleagues (1) report findings from the Nutritional Prevention of Cancer (NPC) trial that show an increased risk for diabetes among participants randomly assigned to receive supplements with 200 g of selenium daily for 7.7 years compared with placebo. This effect was largely limited to participants in the top tertile of plasma selenium level at baseline ( 121.6 ng/mL...