Synthesis of substituted carbamo(dithioperoxo)thioates as potential BCA2-inhibitory anticancer agents

A new, simple, one-step synthetic route to carbamo(dithioperoxo)thioates from commercially available starting materials is described. The key step of this new synthetic approach involves the tetrabromomethane-promoted reaction between secondary amines, carbon disulfide and alkyl thiols under basic conditions at room temperature. New compounds from this series selected for anticancer screening showed selective sub-micromolar activity within BCA2-expressing human breast cancer cell lines.