Recent advances in the chemistry of selenium-containing heterocycles: Five-membered ring systems

•Latest synthetic methods of five-membered selenium-containing heterocycles are reviewed.•Insertion of selenium into organic scaffolds under copper catalysis is of great importance.•Selenium–metal exchange and selenium transfer reagents are valuable synthetic tools.•Selenium-containing heterocycles are more than glutathione peroxidase (GPx) mimics.

This review provides a comprehensive survey of the recent advances in the methods of construction of five membered ring systems containing selenium over the period from the year 2000 to the year 2015.