New trends for metal complexes with anticancer activity

Medicinal inorganic chemistry can exploit the unique properties of metal ions for the design of new drugs. This has, for instance, led to the clinical application of chemotherapeutic agents for cancer treatment, such as cisplatin. The use of cisplatin is, however, severely limited by its toxic side-...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current opinion in chemical biology Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 197 - 206
Main Authors: Bruijnincx, Pieter CA, Sadler, Peter J
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.04.2008
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ISSN:1367-5931, 1879-0402
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Medicinal inorganic chemistry can exploit the unique properties of metal ions for the design of new drugs. This has, for instance, led to the clinical application of chemotherapeutic agents for cancer treatment, such as cisplatin. The use of cisplatin is, however, severely limited by its toxic side-effects. This has spurred chemists to employ different strategies in the development of new metal-based anticancer agents with different mechanisms of action. Recent trends in the field are discussed in this review. These include the more selective delivery and/or activation of cisplatin-related prodrugs and the discovery of new non-covalent interactions with the classical target, DNA. The use of the metal as scaffold rather than reactive centre and the departure from the cisplatin paradigm of activity towards a more targeted, cancer cell-specific approach, a major trend, are discussed as well. All this, together with the observation that some of the new drugs are organometallic complexes, illustrates that exciting times lie ahead for those interested in ‘metals in medicine’.
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ISSN:1367-5931
1879-0402
DOI:10.1016/j.cbpa.2007.11.013