Mechanism of the reaction of thiols with selenite

Abstract

Although selenium has now been shown to be required entirely apart from its interaction with vitamin E, the action of its prevention of deficiency diseases in animals is very intimately connected with that of vitamin E. Studies have indicated that vitamin E may be carried by a seleno-lipoprotein fraction associated with serum y-globulin. Thus one biological role of selenium appears to lie in a selenium-containing compound which acts as a carrier of vitamin E and which may function in the absorption, retention and prevention of destruction of d-ct-tocopherol, and perhaps in its transfer across cell membranes, thereby enhancing its biological activity in the blood and perhaps in the cells throughout the body.