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Dalton Transactions

The international journal for inorganic, organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry



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Dalton Trans., 2009, 6894 - 6902, DOI: 10.1039/b906308k

Metal-NHC complexes: a survey of anti-cancer properties

Marie-Laure Teyssot, Anne-Sophie Jarrousse, Michèle Manin, Aurélien Chevry, Stéphane Roche, Frédéric Norre, Claude Beaudoin, Laurent Morel, Damien Boyer, Rachid Mahiou and Arnaud Gautier

New weapons to fight cancer are constantly needed. Among chemotherapeutics, anti-cancer metal-drugs have enjoyed a long and successful history since the discovery of the benchmark cisplatin. Advances in metal-drug discovery have motivated chemists to build plethora of complex structures. Among them, a novel area is emerging. This article presents a survey of the metal-N-Heterocyclic Carbenes (Ag(I), Au(I), Pd(II) and Cu(I)-NHCs) as potential anti-cancer agents. Most of the metal-NHCs considered display higher cytotoxicities than the reference metallo-drug cisplatin. Some of them are even selective for particular cell lines. Their mechanisms of action at the cellular level are further discussed, showing that the nature of the metal is of great importance. All these promising results demonstrate that this approach deserves more attention and work.

Graphical abstract image for this article (ID: b906308k)