Biological applications dithiocarbamates

This chapter is aimed at inorganic chemists and as such it focuses on the synthesis, properties, and reactivity of transition metal dithiocarbamate complexes. A flavor of the established and potential applications of each metal type is given in Section IV, but space restrictions nessetate that their applications in analytical chemistry and the agricultural industry (27), together with their widespread biological applications (45—48) are not fully developed. 

Hi. Biological Applications. Copper(II) bis(dithiocarbamate) complexes have a number of potential biological applications. For example, while dithio-carbamate salts (R = Me, Ft) are potent inhibitors of a clonogenic response in human C34 bone marrow cells, addition of copper sulfate greatly potentiates the hematotoxicity, suggesting a more general role for copper in dithiocarba-mate-induced hematotoxicity (1779). 

Willis (W12) has recently summarized the principles and applications of this method. A short note appeared recently regarding the use of atomic absorption spectrometry for serum and urine copper analysis (B15). The sensitivity of this method for copper is rather less than for such other biologically important trace metals as magnesium, zinc, and sodium. The sensitivity can be improved by extracting the copper as dithiocarbamate or pyrollidinedithiocarbamate complex (A7) into methyl isobutyl ketone. While this method is less sensitive than some others, it is nevertheless very specific and the apparatus is only moderately expensive. 

Closely related are the 1-benzylamino-l-deoxylactitol dithiocarbamate salts developed by Eybl and co-workers316 317 for the same purpose. However, the most important application of 175 is, probably, its use as a nontoxic, water-soluble nitric oxide probe in vivo. In view of the central importance that this gaseous free-radical species plays in regulating a broad range of important biological functions, its detection and quantification near its site of production and action is of prime importance. For this purpose, the ferrous salt of MGD, which forms a stable water-soluble mononitrosyl iron-dithiocarbamate complex (176) with a characteristic electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrum at room temperature, is currently used.318-323... 

The importance of [S2CNR2] dithiocarbamates in biological systems has emerged as result of the discovery by Gale et al. in 1981 of sodium diethyldithiocarbamate as an antidote for acute cadmium(II) chloride poisoning [105]. Since then, the coordination chemistry of cadmium(II) with dithiocarbamates has been steadily developed. The majority of studies were carried out in solution and it was not until recently that research focused on the solid state, due to the fact that dithio-/diseleno-carbamates of cadmium are excellent precursors for the synthesis of CdS or CdSe nanoparticles, which have unique electronic and optical properties that make them suitable for optoelectronic applications [106-108]. 

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