Pharmacological Activities of Epithio Steroids

The present review describes biological activities of semi- and synthetic epithio steroids. About fifty biologically active compounds have shown confirmed antitumor, immunosuppressant, or aromatase inhibition and other activities. More than a quarter of all studied steroids belong to the group of anabolic steroids, and they showed many new and additional activities. Epithio steroids possess mainly cytotoxic activities, although the predicted biological activity showed a broad spectrum of activities. As we found, the position of the epithio group in the core of steroids can significantly change the activity of steroids. The structures, as well as reported and predicted activities of a selection of epithio steroids, are reported. With the computer program PASS based on structure–activity relationships (SAR), some additional activities are also predicted, which point toward new possible applications of these lipids. This review emphasizes the role of epithio steroids as an important source of leads for drug discovery, and they are of great interest to chemists, physicians, biologists, pharmacologists and the pharmaceutical industry.