Abstract
The discovery in the early sixties of the fundamental role that selenium plays in many living systems has led to investigate the chemical mechanisms of action of the most important selenoenzymes. These mechanisms together with the possibility to develop biomimetic molecules to be used as useful catalysts in green synthetic protocols will be explored in this chapter.
Keywords: ROS, Antioxidant, Selenoenzymes, Oxidative stress, Glutathione Peroxidase, Prooxidants, Oxidation, Selenolate, Selenyl radical, EPR spectroscopy.