Title : Copper (II) complexes as potential anticancer agents
Abstract:
Cancer is the second major cause of deaths in the world and U.S.A. after heart diseases. Platinum-containing drugs such as cisplatin and its second and third generations, which have been approved worldwide in the treatment of various types of human cancers experience serious toxic side effects due to their low selectivity and tumor resistance. Copper complexes were emerged in the last two decades as promising frontline agents in the development of effective anticancer chemotherapeutics. Copper is an essential element for life and it is expected to less toxic than other metal ions, and its involvement in many biological pathways. Therefore, in the research for designing novel copper-based complexes as an alternative strategic approach for non-platinum drugs many copper coordinated to N, O, S-donor ligands were synthesized and their anticancer activities were investigated. Some of the Cu(II) complexes such as Elesclomol, Casiopeínas IIIia and II-Gly have entered phase I clinical trial for treatment acute myeloid leukemia, where several mechanistic pathways were found to be responsible for the interaction of the Cu(II) compounds with the cancer cells and DNA. Herein, we shed the light on the recent developments in this area. We emphasize on some high potent in vitro cytotoxicity of monomeric and novel series of dinuclear Cu(II) complexes derived from tripodal tetradentate amines and amines bearing 3,5-dimethyl-pyrazole moieties as well as tripodal amines based phenolates. The in vitro anticancer activity of these compounds, which were tested against human cancer cell lines will be addressed.
