Gold thiolate complexes

Several reviews on gold therapy have appeared recently, with an emphasis on metabolism by Shaw,19 on ligand exchange reactions by Sadler and coworkers,20 on EXAFS and XANES studies by Elder et al.,21 and on studies of gold thiolate complexes in vivo and in vitro by Brown and Smith.22... 

Fig. 7 Red shift in emission energy of binuclear gold thiolate complexes via metal-ion encapsulation...

Gold thiolate complexes, 88, are widely used in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis . These complexes have AuS2 coordination environments and form oligomers " (AuSR) . 

D., Yang, C.-T, Ranford, J.D., Vittal, J.J. and Lee, P.F. (2003) Synthesis, characterization, and biological activities of 2-phenylpyridine gold(lll) complexes with thiolate ligands. Dalton Transactions, (17), 3376. 

The earliest use of gold complexes in medicine primarily involved gold thiolates, which being yellow or even gold-colored in solution, led to their designation as chrysotherapy (chrysos is Greek for gold). 

These bis(thiolato)gold(I) complexes are useful models for providing insights into the chemistry of the end products of the reactions between 1 1 gold thiolates and any excess (including other) thiol, including some reactions with proteins in vivo. 

Scheme 1. The solvent-free controlled thermolysis of gold(I) thiolate complex producing gold nanoparticles stabilized by alkyl groups derived from the precursor.

Scheme 2. Production of size-regulated gold nanoparticles stabilized by primary amines, tertiary amines, sulfides, and thiols formed by the controlled thermolysis of gold(I) thiolate complex in the presence of amine (reprinted from Ref. [11], 2005, with permission from Elsevier).

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