Research Progress of Metal Anticancer Drugs

Abstract

Cancer treatments, including traditional chemotherapy, have failed to cure human malignancies. The main reasons for the failure of these treatments are the inevitable drug resistance and serious side effects. In clinical treatment, only 5 percent of the 50 percent of cancer patients who are able to receive conventional chemotherapy survive. Because of these factors, being able to develop a drug and treatment that can target only cancer cells without affecting normal cells remains a big challenge. Since the special properties of cisplatin in the treatment of malignant tumors were accidentally discovered in the last century, metal anticancer drugs have become a research hotspot. Metal anticancer drugs have unique pharmaceutical properties, such as ruthenium metal drugs with their high selectivity, low toxicity, easy absorption by tumor tissue, excretion, and so on. In recent years, efficient and low-toxicity metal antitumor complexes have been synthesized. In this paper, the scientific literature on platinum (Pt), ruthenium (Ru), iridium (Ir), gold (Au), and other anticancer complexes was reviewed by referring to a large amount of relevant literature at home and abroad.

Keywords: cancer; gold anticancer drugs; iridium anticancer drugs; platinum anticancer drugs; ruthenium anticancer drugs.

Figure 13

Structural schematic diagram of iridium and gold complexes.

Figure 1

Schematic diagram of the anticancer mechanism of metal anticancer drug BBR-3464.

Figure 2

Development of classical platinum anticancer drugs [14].

Figure 3

Classical platinum anticancer drugs.

Figure 4

Anticancer mechanism of cisplatin [1].

Figure 5

Schematic diagram of DAPT combined with cisplatin in the treatment of osteosarcoma cells [33].

Figure 6

Metabolic steps of carboplatin. “*” stands for ¹⁴C.

Figure 7

Non-classical platinum anticancer drugs.

Figure 8

Chemical structure of NAMI-A, KP1019, and KP1339.

Figure 9

1 is the general structural formula of the semi-filled arylruthenium (II) complex; 2~12 are the chemical structures of RAPTA compounds. 13~18 are the molecular structure formula of arylruthenium (II) containing glucose molecules [112].

Figure 10

19 and 20 are arylruthenium (II) complexes of biotin-functionalized monodentate phosphorus ligands; 21~26 are monodontic acylthiourea aryl ruthenium (II) complexes; 27~29 are the arylruthenium (II) complexes of SAID class. 30~34 are structural formulas for ethylenediamine arylruthenium (II) complexes [112].

Figure 11

Structure diagram of ring metal Ruthenium complex 35~38 and [Ru(dmb)₂(DBHIP)]²⁺ [129,130].

Figure 12

(a) RuPOP combined with hNKs to promote the killing of MDA-MB-231 tumor cells; (b) Structurally optimized RuPOP complexes promote NK cell immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer [131].

Figure 14

Structural schematic diagram of osmium, silver, and rhenium complexes.