Novel oxycarbonylselenoesters as anticancer agents

Selenium is a trace element whose derivatives fulfil important biological functions and have being widely studied in cancer prevention and chemotherapy due to their roles as antioxidant and antiproliferative agents(1). Hence, our group has explored recently the anticancer properties of different selenoderivatives. In this research, twenty-six carboxymethylselenoesters were synthesized and biologically evaluated(2), and, although most active ones had noteworthy antiproliferative values in the cancer cell line (PC-3), overall activity was below the expectatives. In order to improve the biological activity fifteen methyl, tert-butyl and phenyl carboxylic esters of the most active carboxymethylselenoesters were synthesized. As preliminary results in prostate cancer cells (PC-3) showed that methyl esterification enhances the biological effect(3), nine selected derivatives were more-in-depth studied in the Université Paris Descartes against a panel of eight cell lines using the Crystal Vi...