Ruthenium complexes, drugs

Table 3 Drug Analysis by HPLC with CL Detection Using Ruthenium Complex... 

Nonorganic and organometallic catalysts are also used to channel the reactions toward the chiral synthesis pathway. The drug called levodopa, (5)-3,4-dihydroxyalanine, is an effective drug against Parkinson s disease. It is stereoselectively manufactured using catalysts such as rhodium or ruthenium complexes. 

Transition-metal based compounds constitute a discrete class of chemotherapeutics, widely used in medicine as antitumor agents.56 Several ruthenium complexes enable the body to catalyze oxidation and reduction reactions, depending on the physiological environment, and have attracted much interest as alternative antitumor drugs in the treatment of cancer cells resistant to cisplatin in cancer... 

Alessio E, Mestroni G, Bergamo A, Sava G (2004) Ruthenium anticancer drugs. In Sigel H (ed) Metal Complexes in Tumor Diagnosis and as Anticancer Agents. CRC Press, USA, pp 323-351... 

Lentz F, Drescher A, Lindauer A, Henke M, Hilger RA, Hartinger CG, Scheulen ME, Dittrich C, Keppler BK, Jaehde U (2009) Pharmacokinetics of a novel anticancer ruthenium complex (KP1019, FFC14A) in a phase I dose-escalation study. Anti-Cancer Drugs 20 97-103... 

The results of the Ames test for mutagenesis Indicate that many ruthenium compounds Introduce serious lesions into cellular genetic material so that an error-prone DNA repair mechanism is Induced. These results are similar to those obtained for clsplatln (M) and suggest that these complexes probably bind directly to nuclear DNA. In concert with this, many of the ruthenium complexes also Inhibit cellular DNA synthesis (H, ), another property also noted for the cls-platlnum drugs. Unfortunately, however, there Is no correlation between either of these studies and the antitumor activity of ruthenium compounds tested In animal systems. 

The possibility to modulate the electronic spectrum of nitrosyl ruthenium complexes could make this class of compounds potentially useful drugs for clinical therapy under light radiation based on photoactivatable NO release. 

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