Anticancer activity of self-assembled molecular rectangles via arene-ruthenium acceptors and a new unsymmetrical amide ligand

摘要

Two new and large molecular rectangles 4 and 5 were synthesized from two different arene-ruthenium [Ru _2(μ-η ~4-C _2O _4)(MeOH) _2(η ~6-p-Pr ~iC _6H _4Me) _2][O _3SCF _3] _2 (2) and [Ru _2(p-cymene) _2(donq) (OH _2) _2][O _3SCF _3] _2 (donq = 5,8-dioxydo-1,4-naphthaquinonato) (3) acceptors and a new unsymmetrical N-(4-(pyridin-4-ylethynyl)phenyl) isonicotinamide (1) donor ligand. X-ray crystallography of 4 confirmed a molecular rectangle. The 1H NMR spectra of both rectangles 4 and 5 showed a mixture of two structural, head-to-tail (HTT) and head-to-head (HTH), type isomers in a 1:1 ratio. The cytotoxicities of both rectangles have been established against Colo320 (colorectal cancer), A549 (lung cancer), MCF-7 (breast cancer), and H1299 (lung cancer) human cancer cell lines. The cytotoxicity of rectangle 5 was found to be considerably stronger against all cancer cell lines than that of the reference drug cisplatin.