Copper based complexes as alternative drugs to cisplatin
Olga Lem
Department of Chemistry, School of Science and Technology, Nazarbayev University,
Astana, Kazakhstan
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Nowadays cancer is one of the progressive causes of death in all over the world. Biologically,
different cancer diseases sharing several common features. One of them is stable proliferation,
resulting in uncontrolled tumor cell growth. A broad research has been done to describe and
characterize antiproliferative effect of different compounds, starting from naturally occurring
molecules with their derivatives, to inorganic and organometallic compounds and their
application in cancer therapy. However, antiproliferative effect of cisplatin and other
compounds have negative effects on normal cells decreasing its effectivity. Since, in the last
decades a great attention has been dedicated to the development of more effective and less
toxic drugs. Therefore, less toxic metals, like gold, ruthenium and copper have been introduced .
Copper have been chosen for synthesis of anticancer drugs under the assumption that it might
lower systemic toxicity. Therefore, several Cu (II) complexes with different ligands have been
synthesized and tested as antitumor drugs. This research of copper based complexes
summarizes copper(I) N-heterocyclic carbene complexes and copper(II)polypyridyl complexes
as promising anticancer drugs and discuses antiproliferative effect on tumor cells, their
chemical features and mechanism of action.