The Role of Sulfur in Platinum Anticancer Chemotherapy

Abstract

Sulfur manifests its influence on platinum anticancer chemotherapy in two aspects: endogenous sulfurcontaining molecules such as cysteine, methionine, glutathione, metallothionein and albumin affect the metabolism of platinum drugs and exert adverse effects on the therapeutic efficacy; exogenous congeners such as amifostine (WR-2721) and dimesna (BNP7787) mitigate the toxic side effects of platinum drugs and serve as chemoprotectants. The platinumsulfur interactions are ubiquitous in the human body and many occurrences encountered during platinum chemotherapy such as uptake, excretion, resistance, and toxicity are related to them. Thus, sulfur-containing molecules play significant roles in the anticancer mechanism of platinum drugs. In this review, the platinum-sulfur interactions are summarized in detail, which may be important for efficient clinical use of the existing platinum agents and beneficial to the rational design of new generation of platinum-based anticancer drugs.