The Metallic Edge: Organometallic Compounds As Anticancer Drugs

Abstract

The study of organometallic compounds as an Anti-Cancer Agents has been focused due to their versatility in various physical and chemical properties. However any attempt to understand how organometallic compounds act as anti-cancer agents i.e. their attacking mechanisms ,site of attack and also the various types of organometallic compounds exhibiting cytotoxicity against cancer cells approaches initially to activation of complexes.

This dissertation discovers the aspects of the chemistry related to many types of organometallic compounds such as Metallocenes (including derivatives of ferrocenes, vanadocenes and zirconocene), Metal-Arenes(ruthenium arenes, gold complexes and osmium arenes).

All these organometallic derivatives are a part of recent researches and their physical and chemical properties along with their cytotoxicity have been detected in detail. Therefore the ideas for enhancing the cytotoxicity of these complexes had also came in idea i.e. by combining a pharmacophore like that in case of osmium complexes according to the latest researches ,as compared to the monodentate ligand, Os(II) arene complexes with specific phenylazopyridine ligands (π-acceptor ligands) were more powerful and unreactive with iodide. They are active in vivo and 49 times more effective on average in a Sanger panel of 809 cancer cell lines than cisplatin.

The evolution of chemical properties of organometallic complexes and their studies over the years progressively developed. Although previous research on the biological effects of cisplatin and the emergence of cisplatin resistance phenotypes provide critical information that can be used to produce platinum and non-platinum metal-based medicines for cancer therapy that are more effective and less harmful. It is to be predicted that non-platinum metal compounds may have toxic side effects and anti-cancer efficacy that are notably different from those of platinum-based medications.