Novel disulfides as anticancer/antimalarial agents

Abstract

The antimalarial/anticancer (human skin cancer) properties of 11 small organosulfur compounds, some of which show antifungal and antileukemic activity, were determined using in vitro assays. Some compounds had little or no antimalarial/anticancer activity while others were highly active with IC50 values in the low µM range. Three disulfides (3, 7, 9) show encouraging activity, viz: low activity against CHO (representative mammalian) cells and significantly higher activity against human malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) cells and human skin cancer (C32) cells.