Novel aryl (dithioglycosyl)methane derivatives as anti-proliferative agents

In a quest of developing carbohydrate derived anti-cancer agents, novel carbohydrate dithioacetal derivatives have been synthesized and evaluated for their potential as anti-proliferative agents against breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231) as well as non-cancerous kidney epithelial cell line (NKE). Total 18 compounds have been screened and 3 compounds showed promising anti-proliferative activities against cancer cells with low cytotoxicity to the normal cells using MTT assay. The mode of action of the best active compound has been proposed based on several microscopic studies. A molecular docking study also confirmed the proposed mechanism for the anti-proliferative properties.