Oxygen free radical have recently been found to mediate cell injury after ischemia in the kidney. The purpose of our study was to determine whether selenium had an effect on damge mediated by oxygen free radical in inorganic mercury induced renal failure, toxic model of renal failure. Toxic renal failure model was produced by subcutaneous injection of mercuric chloride (4mg/kg) once a day for 7 consecutive days. In additionally, coadministration of sodium selenite (1mg/kg) was performed by the same condition. As a consequence of this study, we were able to detect partially unequivocal role of selenium as below dipicted. The combination of sodium selenite showed that markedly inhibited production of superoxide radical in mercuric chloride alone. On the other hand, combined sodium selenite was unable to enhance against significantly lowered superoxide dismutase activity after mercuric chloride insult. However, simultaneous administration of sodium selenite was inclined to induce mitochondrial superoxide dismutase and catalase.