GPX2 and colitis: Krehl et al. (2012) reported that selenium mitigated the severity of DSS colitis by enhancing GPX2 activity. Zhu et al. (2016) demonstrated that selenium-containing phycocyanin significantly decreased the level of inflammatory cytokines and oxidative stress. Furthermore, selenium also regulated the composition of gut microbiota, thus restoring the flora dysbiosis in colitis (Zhai et al., 2018a).