Resumen:
Chagas disease is usually caused by tropical infection with the insect-transmitted protozoan
Trypanosoma cruzi. Currently, Chagas disease is a major public health concern worldwide due
to globalization, and there are no treatments neither vaccines because of the long-term nature
of the disease and its complex pathology. Current treatments are limited to two obsolete drugs,
benznidazole and nifurtimox, which lead to serious drawbacks. Taking into account the urgent need
for strict research efforts to find new therapies, here, we describe the in vitro and in vivo trypanocidal
activity of a library of selected forty-eight selenocyanate and diselenide derivatives that exhibited
leishmanicidal properties. The inclusion of selenium, an essential trace element, was due to the wellknown
extensive pharmacological activities for selenium compounds including parasitic diseases as
T. cruzi. Here we present compound 8 as a potential compound that exhibits a better profile than
benznidazole both in vitro and in vivo. It shows a fast-acting behaviour that could be attributed to
its mode of action: it acts in a mitochondrion-dependent manner, causing cell death by bioenergetic
collapse. This finding provides a step forward for the development of a new antichagasic agent
