There is significant interest in employing rhenium (Re) based carbonyl compounds as potential anti-cancer therapies. These compounds possess a stable Re(CO)3 core and functional groups on the ligand backbone that are linked to a conjugating moiety to bind different biological molecules of interest (see figure 1). Apart from their cytotoxicity, these compounds also possess convenient spectroscopic handles which aid in the live imaging of cells. Towards this end, we have investigated the cytotoxicity of five rhenium carbonyl complexes containing pyrrole ligands, {2-(CH3O)C4H3N}Re(CO)3(L)}, ( L= CO (1a), Pyridine (1b), PPh3 (1c), and dihydrofuran (1d)), and {2-(CF3O)C4H3N}Re(CO)4}, 2. The cytotxicity of rhenium complexes containing different ancillary ligands on the rhenium metal center were tested on the HCT 116 cancer cell lines. The cancer cell line was treated with incrementally increasing concentrations (5μM - 50μM) of the rhenium compounds and the resulting cytotoxicity was analyzed using cell counting kit-8 at two different time-points, 24 and 48 hours. The results revealed that four out of the five compounds showed a pronounced cytotoxic effect after 48 hours of treatment. Of the five compounds, {2-(CH3O)C4H3N}Re(CO)3(L)}, ( L= CO (1a) ) showed maximum cytotoxicity. The results further indicate that the cytotoxic effect is inversely correlated with the coordinating ability of the ligand system such that the complex with a weak coordinating ligand showed a higher cytotoxic effect

Anti-cancer potential of rhenium carbonyl complexes containing pyrrole ligands on colorectal cancer cell line HCT 116

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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