Antitumor Activity, Synthesis and Characterization of novel Organogold Compounds containing N-Heterocyclic Carbene and Selone Ligands

Biomedical inorganic chemistry is a new, rapidly developing area of chemistry with enormous potential for applications in medicine. Different metal complexes are currently used to treat a variety of human disorders. Cisplatin is one of the first metal-containing compounds with anti-cancer activity discovered in the 1960s. Despite the fact that cisplatin treatment is efficient for several types of solid tumours, its effectiveness is limited by toxic side effects and tumour resistance that often leads to the occurrence of secondary malignancies. Even though the antitumor activity for inorganic compounds was reported more than 35 years ago, it was not until 1969 that the classical compounds cis-PtCl2(NH3)2, was found to be able to kill tumors in animals. In this study, we proposed to synthesize a series of new gold(I)- N-heterocyclic carbene complexes with some selone ligands and characterized them using elemental analysis, Infrared spectroscopy (IR), (1H and 13C solution NMR, as well as 13C, 15N and 77Se solid NMR spectroscopy) and single-crystal X-ray crystallography. Also these complexes will be studied against cancer cell lines such as A549, HeLa and MCF7. Outcome of this study will enhance our understanding of Au(I)-carbene containing ligands and their interactions and will be of help in developing a new generation of anti cancer drug which will be less toxic than the currently available drugs in the market.