Fig. 1: Thiol exchange in auranofin-related clinical trials.

a a timeline summary of auranofin-repurposing clinical trials on cancer therapy in recent years. b drugs used in clinical trial NCT02770378 for glioblastoma. c the chemical structures of the indicated drugs. d cellular gold uptake affected by the co-treatment with thiol-containing drugs in U87 cells. 3 μM of auranofin was used in all groups with or without DSF (570 μM) or Cap (156 μM) for 10 min at 37 °C. Data are shown as mean ± s. d. of three independent experiments. e mass spectrometry identified the formation of a DEDT-gold-phosphine molecule after an in vitro incubation of auranofin (2 μM), captopril (4 μM), and disulfiram (2 μM) for 30 min at 37 °C in methanol. The spectrum was extracted from 463.0000 to 467.0000 m/z [M + H]⁺ values with the predicted m/z labeled in red. The result is representative of three independent experiments. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.