New Gold(I) Organometallic Compounds with Biological Activity in Cancer Cells (Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 27/2014)

Characterization of Hydrophilic Gold(I) N-Heterocyclic Carbene (NHC) Complexes as Potent TrxR Inhibitors Using Biochemical and Mass Spectrometric Approaches

We report here on the synthesis of a series of mono-and dinuclear gold(I) complexes exhibiting sulfonated bis(NHC) ligands and novel hydroxylated mono(NHC) Au(I) compounds, which were also examined for their 'biological activities. Initial cell viability assays show strong antiproliferative activities of the hydroxylated mono(NHC) gold compounds (8 > 9 > 10) against 2008 human ovarian cancer cells even after 1 h incubation. In order to gain insight into the mechanism of biological action of the gold compounds, their effect on the pivotal cellular target seleno-enzyme thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), involved in the maintenance of intracellular redox balance, was investigated in depth. Th…

New Gold(I) Organometallic Compounds with Biological Activity in Cancer Cells

N-Heterocyclic carbene gold(I) complexes bearing a fluorescent coumarin ligand were synthesized and characterized by various techniques. The compounds were examined for their antiproliferative effects in normal and tumor cells in vitro; they demonstrated moderate activity and a certain degree of selectivity. The compounds were also shown to efficiently inhibit the selenoenzyme thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), whereas they were poorly effective towards the glutathione reductase (GR) and glutathione peroxidase enzymes. Notably, {3-[(7-methoxy-2-oxo-2H-chromen-4-yl) methyl]-1-methylimidazol-2-ylidene}(tetra-O-acetyl-1-thio-beta-D-glucopyranosido) gold(I) (3) showed a pronounced inhibition of TrxR…