pharmaceuticals Review Sweet Selenium: Synthesis and Properties of Selenium-Containing Sugars and Derivatives Francesca Mangiavacchi 1,*, Italo Franco Coelho Dias 1,2, Irene Di Lorenzo 1, Pawel Grzes 3, Martina Palomba 1, Ornelio Rosati 1 , Luana Bagnoli 1 , Francesca Marini 1 , Claudio Santi 1 , Eder Joao Lenardao 2 and Luca Sancineto 1,* 1 Group of Catalysis, Synthesis and Organic Green Chemistry, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Perugia, Via del Liceo 1, 06100 Perugia (PG), Italy;
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[email protected] (L.S.) Received: 5 August 2020; Accepted: 25 August 2020; Published: 26 August 2020 Abstract: In the last decades, organoselenium compounds gained interest due to their important biological features. However, the lack of solubility, which characterizes most of them, makes their actual clinical exploitability a hard to reach goal. Selenosugars, with their intrinsic polarity, do not suffer from this issue and as a result, they can be conceived as a useful alternative. The aim of this review is to provide basic knowledge of the synthetic aspects of selenosugars, selenonium salts, selenoglycosides, and selenonucleotides.