Agnese Petrini

Synthesis, Structure, and Antiproliferative Activity of Ruthenium(II) Arene Complexes with N,O-Chelating Pyrazolone-Based β-Ketoamine Ligands

Novel ruthenium half-sandwich complexes containing (N,O)-bound pyrazolone-based β-ketoamine ligands have been prepared, and the solid-state structures of one ligand and five complexes have been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Some of the complexes display moderate cytotoxicity toward the human ovarian cancer cell lines A2780 and A2780cisR, the latter line having acquired resistance to cisplatin.

Cytotoxic Half-Sandwich Rh(III) and Ir(III) β-Diketonates

A series of half-sandwich pentamethylcyclopentadienyl rhodium(III) and iridium(III) complexes [Cp*M(DBM/HDB/AVB)Cl] and [Cp*M(DBM/HDB/AVB)(PTA)][SO3CF3], where Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl, the proligands DBMH = dibenzoylmethane, HDBH = o-hydroxydibenzoylmethane, AVBH = avobenzone, and PTA = 1,3,5-triaza-7-phosphaadamantane, is reported. All the complexes were characterized by IR, 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, elemental analysis, and DFT calculations. Five of the complexes have also been characterized in the solid-state by X-ray crystallography. The cytotoxicity of the complexes has been evaluated against human ovarian A2780 and A2780cisR cell lines and, with the only exception of complexes 1 and 2 that display a negligible cytotoxicity, exhibit moderate cytotoxicity toward both cancer cell lines. However, the complexes do not show cancer cell selectivity with respect to human embryonic kidney HEK293 cells.