Advances in metal–carbene complexes as potent anti-cancer agents

Abstract

This critical review is an updated survey of metal-carbenes as potential anticancer chemotherapeutics. We report on the recent advances in the discovery of N-heterocyclic carbenes, acyclic diamino carbenes and abnormal NHCs associated with metals from groups 10 and 11 that displayed antiproliferative activity and emphasize, when possible, their molecular target(s) and their mechanism of action.

Benzimidazolium-based novel silver N-heterocyclic carbene complexes: synthesis, characterisation and in vitro antimicrobial activity

“…From investigations to date, many groups of researchers have synthesised and determined the biological activity of a broad range of Ag-NHC complexes [10][11][12] . Specifically, compounds derived from benzimidazole-based NHC ligands have shown promising antimicrobial activity 9,11,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and various studies have extended their research to anticancer activity 6,9,13,14 .…”

“…Ag + in low concentrations is non-toxic to humans, therefore a compound that releases Ag + to the environment in a steady rate make an effective antimicrobial agent [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] . The effectiveness of a silver complex as an antimicrobial agent depends on the bioavailability of Ag + when the compound is solubilised.…”

BIAN N-Heterocyclic Gold Carbene Complexes induced cytotoxicity in human cancer cells via upregulating oxidative stress

“…The reactivity of a carbene is influenced by the nature of the substituents attached to the carbene carbon atom (Bourissou et al, 2000). The N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) metal complexes possess diverse biological activities and a few of them have been reported as potential chemotherapeutic agents (Hindi et al, 2009;Teyssot et al, 2009;Gautier and (Hickey et al, 2008a;Rubbiani et al, 2011). The anti-mitochondrial properties of cationic, linear Au(I) N-heterocyclic carbene complexes have also been reported in another study (Baker et al, 2006).…”

Synthesis and Cytotoxicity of Dinuclear Silver(I)-N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes

“…This range of vibrations is due to the presence of C-H (sp 3 -s) stretching of alkyl chains and methylene (N-CH 2 -Ar) groups. This can be further classified as the vibrational bands in the range 2840-2855 cm -1 appeared for CH 3 stretchings, 2920-2925 cm -1 for CH2 anti-symmetric stretchings, and 2955-2960 cm -1 for CH 2 symmetric stretchings.…”

“…The incorporation of Carboplatin against cancer has recently attracted researchers to further explore the area of metal based anticancer drugs [2,3]. Except transition metals, the organometallic compounds based on coinage metals (Ag, Au, Cu) have now attracted the researchers for medicinal applications [4,5].…”