Role of sulphur-heterocycles in medicinal chemistry: An update

From many decades, S-heterocycles have maintained their status as an important part and core of FDA approved drugs and medicinally active compounds. With exhaustive exploration of nitrogen heterocycles in medicinal chemistry, researchers have shifted their interest towards other heterocycles, especially, S-heterocycles. Thus several attempts have been made to synthesize a variety of new sulphur containing compounds with high medicinal value and low toxicity profile, in comparison to previous N-heterocycles. Till today, S-heterocycle containing compounds have been largely reported as anticancer, antidiabetic, antimicrobial, antihypertension, antivral, antinflammatory etc. In this review, the authors have tried to provide a critical analysis of synthesis and medicinal attributes of sulphur containing heterocycles such as thiirane, thiophene, thiazole, thiopyran, thiazolidine etc reported within last five years to emphasize the significance and usefulness of these S-heterocycles in the drug discovery process.