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Dalton Transactions

The international journal for inorganic, organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry



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Dalton Trans., 2007, 4988 - 4997, DOI: 10.1039/b705227h

Designing Zn(II) and Cu(II) derivatives as probes for in vitro fluorescence imaging

Sofia I. Pascu, Philip A. Waghorn, Timothy D. Conry, Helen M. Betts, Jonathan R. Dilworth, Grant C. Churchill, Tzveta Pokrovska, Martin Christlieb, Franklin I. Aigbirhio and John E. Warren

New M(II) bis(thiosemicarbazonato) complexes (M = Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II)) featuring allyl groups at the exocyclic nitrogens have been synthesised. The complexes were characterised in solution by spectroscopic methods and their solid state structures determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation. The Zn(II) complex was found to be intrinsically fluorescent and soluble in biocompatible media. The uptake of this Zn(II) complex in HeLa, MCF-7 and IGROV cancer cells was monitored by fluorescence microscopies (epi- and confocal fluorescence imaging). The radiolabelling to 64Cu(II) bis(thiosemicarbazonato) complex was performed cleanly by transmetallation from the corresponding Zn(II) species using 64Cu(OAc)2.

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