K.A. Maffuid et al.
Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters 43 (2021) 128078
Scheme 3. Synthetic procedure to afford 39–46.17,38 Reagent and Conditions:
31–32 (X = ArN): a) ArNH2 (2 equiv), DCM, rt, 2 h; b) pyridine (2 equiv), rt, 1
h. 33 (X = S): H2S (g), MeCN, rt. 34 (X = O): HCO2H, rt, 2 h. b) DABCO (2
equiv), PhCl, 131 ◦C, 76–85%. c) NucH, MeCN, reflux, 72–98%.
two chordoma lines.
The 4-methylthiophenyl 15 was toxic with non-specific inhibition of
the toxicity control, this was consistent with findings in the previously
reported in vivo pigment study.39 The 4-bromophenyl 16 showed inhi-
bition of breast cancer (IC50 = 11 µM) with weaker activity across the
other cancer cell lines apart from lung cancer cell line. The 3-bromo-
phenyl 17 had a similar profile to the 4-bromophenyl 16, but showed
just under a 2-fold increase in potency against breast cancer (IC50 = 6.7
µM) with no increase in toxicity. The introduction of an ortho-nitrile to
the 3-bromophenyl analogue 18 reduced activity on the breast cancer
cell line by 4-fold but demonstrated a 3- and 4-fold increase activity on
bladder and pancreatic cancer, respectively. The final two analogues of
this series 19 and 20 contained para-substituted sulfonamide groups.
The N-(thiazol-2-yl)sulfonamide 19 showed only limited activity, but
the N-(pyrimid-2-yl)sulfonamide 20 showed potent activity against
breast cancer (IC50 = 3.0 µM) and some activity against the difficult to
treat,25–26,40 patient-derived chordoma cell line UCH-2 (IC50 = 19 µM).
It is currently unclear if this activity is related to the pyrimidine sub-
tituent, the 1,2,3-dithiazole or both parts of the molecule.
Fig. 1. Examples of biologically active 1,2,3-dithiazoles.
Scheme 1. Nucleophic displacement from Appel salt (7) to afford 8–25. Re-
agent and Conditions: for 8–21: a) ArNH2 (1 equiv), DCM, rt, 2 h; b) pyridine (2
equiv), rt, 1 h; 23–98%. Then for 21–25: a) ArNH2 (1 equiv), HCl (g), DCM, rt,
12 h; b) lutidine (2 equiv), rt, 3 h; 17–92%.
We then made a small series of small heteroaryl amine derivatives
21–25 (Table 2). The first analogue with a N-(thiazol-2-yl) 21, an
analogue of 19 was toxic across all cell lines including WS-1 with little
differentiated activity between the cell lines. The second analogue N-(3-
methyl-1H-pyrazol-5-yl) 22, also showed some toxicity (WS-1; IC50
=
40 µM), but showed a 2-fold improvement over 21, with some activity
against the panel of cancer cell lines. However, with an increase in size
of the C-3 substituent from methyl 22 to phenyl 23, the toxicity can be
tuned out, as in the case of 23 (WS-1; IC50 = >100 µM). The reduction in
toxicity did not compromise inhibition activity with breast, bladder,
prostate, pancreatic cancers, all having IC50’s below 25 µM and breast
Scheme 2. Synthetic procedure to afford 28–30. Reagent and Conditions: a)
Et2NH (3 equiv), i-Pr2NEt (1 equiv), MeCN, rt, 25 min; b) concd H2SO4 (5
equiv), MeCN, rt, 5 min.
analogues 39–46.38
Initial screening focused on the simpler substituted phenyl analogues
based on the (Z)-4-chloro-N-phenyl-5H-1,2,3-dithiazol-5-imines scaffold
8–20 (Table 1). The first compound screened, the (Z)-N-[4-(benzyloxy)
phenyl]-4-chloro-5H-1,2,3-dithiazol-5-imine (8) is known to cause a loss
of pigmentation in melanophores and the retinal pigment epithelium
(RPE) of developing Xenopus laevis embryos.39 In our cell line screening,
dithiazolimine 8 showed limited activity across the cancer cell lines, the
most potent activity was an IC50 of 13 µM against bladder cancer, with
no associated toxicity (WS-1; IC50 = >100 µM). Interestingly, the cor-
responding analogue switching from the benzyl 8 to the phenyl 9 in a
previously reported study yielded a toxic compound,39 whereas no
toxicity (WS-1; IC50 = >100 µM) was observed in our screening and only
limited anti-cancer activity across the cell line panel. The 4-(n-butyl)-
substituted dithiazolimine 10 showed weaker activity (IC50 = 18 µM) on
the bladder cancer cell line, but still without any associated toxicity.
The 4-trifluoromethoxy analogue with the additional diversity of a 2-
methyl group (11) showed a 4-fold drop in bladder cancer inhibition but
an increase of 4-fold for prostate cancer inhibition. Additional modifi-
cation of the 4-trifluoromethoxyphenyl 11 included analogues that
lacked the 2-methyl group but included halo substitution at the 3-posi-
tion (12–13) but these showed no improvement. Interestingly, the fused
methylene 3,4-catechol 14 showed the same potency as the dithiazole
11 on the prostate cancer cell line and a small hint of inhibition on the
cancer inhibition in the single digit micromolar range (IC50 = 9.3 μM).
–
The blocking of the N H of pyrazolyl 23 with a benzyl group 24,
reduced activity against breast cancer by 4-fold, but maintained activity
across bladder, prostate, pancreatic cancers, while showing no toxicity.
However, reverting to a methyl group on C-3 25, led to a potent a
compound against bladder cancer (IC50 = 2.1 µM) and prostate cancer
(IC50 = 10 µM), but also resulted in a compound with increased toxicity
in WS-1 (IC50 = 15 µM).
We then converted three 1,2,3-dithiazoles to fused 1,2,4-dithiazines
28–30 to look at the effect of shifting to an electronically and chemicaly
different disulfide bridge system (Table 3).38 The 5,7-dimethyl-5H-
pyrazolo[3,4-e][1,2,4]dithiazine-3-carbonitrile (28) was near inactive.
However, the extension of the pendant substituent pattern of the 5-
benzyl-7-phenyl-substituted dithiazine 29 allowed for a 10-fold in-
crease of inhibition on the bladder cancer cell line to single digit
micromolar with only mild associated toxicity (WS-1; IC50 = 51 μM)
with respect to 28. Interestingly, the symmetrical 5,7-diphenyl-
substituted dithiazine 30 modulated the anti-cancer activity with im-
provements on both breast and prostate cancer inhibition potency (IC50
= <20
with no tocivty in WS-1 (IC50 = >100 µM).
The encouraging preliminary data from the earlier screening, led us
μM) and maintained bladder cancer inhibition (IC50 = 14 μM)
2