Urea-sugar and thiourea-sugar diastereomers: synthesis, crystal structure and biological activities.

AIMS: The principal objective of the conducted study is to synthesize enantiomerically pure a class of sugar-based (thio)ureas (9-12) and to investigate their antiproliferative activities against the A549 (lung cancer), MCF-7 (breast cancer), and PANC1 (human pancreatic cancer) cell lines. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The synthesis of (thio)urea sugars was performed by two stage procedure. First, the amino sugars (4 and 8) were obtained in three steps (tosylation, substitution and reduction). And secondly, the reaction of 3,5-bis(trifluoromethyl)phenyliso(thio)cyanate with the corresponding amines gave chiral (thio)urea derivatives (9-12). Cell viability was determined in human A549, MCF-7, PANC-1 and noncancer human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) cell lines. RESULTS: Four chiral sugar (thio)ureas (9-12) were synthesized and screened against the A549, MCF-7, and PANC1 cell lines. Of the four chiral sugar derivatives, the compound 9 not only showed the best anticancer activity in the A549 cell line but also provided the highest normal cell (HEK-293) viability. CONCLUSION: From chiral sugar-derived (thio)ureas obtained, the compound 9 was found to be shown the highest activity against A549 cancer cell line. The compound 9, therefore, gave more promising results for future researches as anti-cancer agents. X-ray studies revealed that amide type hydrogens are playing important roles in anti-cancer activities.