An Overview of the Potential Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Properties of Ru(II)/(III) Complexes

Abstract

This review examines the existing knowledge about Ru(II)/(III) ion complexes with a potential application in medicine or pharmacy, which may offer greater potential in cancer chemotherapy than Pt(II) complexes, which are known to cause many side effects. Hence, much attention has been paid to research on cancer cell lines and clinical trials have been undertaken on ruthenium complexes. In addition to their antitumor activity, ruthenium complexes are under evaluation for other diseases, such as type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and HIV. Attempts are also being made to evaluate ruthenium complexes as potential photosensitizers with polypyridine ligands for use in cancer chemotherapy. The review also briefly examines theoretical approaches to studying the interactions of Ru(II)/Ru(III) complexes with biological receptors, which can facilitate the rational design of ruthenium-based drugs.

Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of an Amphiphilic Lipoic Acid-Based Ru(III) Complex as a Versatile Tool for the Functionalization of Different Nanosystems

“…All the synthetic intermediates and the final nucleolipid have been characterized by 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy, as well as by ESI-MS spectrometry, which in all cases confirmed the identity and purity of the target compounds. Signals observed in the 1 H NMR spectrum of LipThyRu (Figure S2a) are diagnostic of the effective complex formation [36,39,60].…”

“…NMR spectra were recorded on a Bruker WM-400. All the chemical shifts (δ) are expressed in ppm with respect to the residual solvent signal for both 1 H NMR [CDCl 3 = 7.26 ppm, (CD 3 ) 2 CO = 2.05 ppm,] and 13 C NMR (CDCl 3 = 76.9 ppm). All the coupling constants (J) are quoted in Hertz (Hz).…”

“…Among metal-containing compounds, Ru(III)-based complexes are among the most attractive molecules in anticancer strategies for their favorable anticancer or antimetastatic properties associated with good pharmacological profiles [11][12][13], as demonstrated for some iconic Ru(III) complexes, such as NAMI-A [14,15], KP1019 [16][17][18][19], and NKP-1339 [20][21][22][23], which reached advanced clinical evaluation (Supplementary Materials: Figure S1).…”

“…1 H-NMR spectrum of compound 2; FigureS4-S6 1. H-NMR,13 C-NMR and ESI-MS spectra of compound 3; Figure S7-S9. 1 H-NMR, 13 C-NMR and ESI-MS spectra of compound 4; Figure S10-S12.…”

Complexes of Ruthenium(II) as Promising Dual-Active Agents against Cancer and Viral Infections

“…Moreover, the modulation activity of amyloid-β aggregation has been described, which can be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease [62,63]. Ru(II) and Ru(III) complexes are currently objects of great attention in the field of medicinal chemistry as antitumor agents with selective antimetastatic properties and low systemic toxicity [64][65][66][67]. The pharmacological activity of metal complexes can be attributed to either the metal itself, its ligands, or both, depending on the structure of the complex.…”