Current and future potential of metallo drugs: Revisiting DNA-binding of metal containing molecules and their diverse mechanism of action

• Platinum based anticancer drugs in clinical trials have serious side effects.
• Anticancer drug screening is most attractive field due to increasing cancer threats.
• Metal complexes show mechanism of action different from that of cisplatin.
• Design of agents targeting DNA and mitochondria is important in medicinal chemistry.

Cancer treatments regimes which include conventional chemotherapy have not proved so successful in curing human malignancies. Failures to these treatment modalities include inherent resistance, systemic toxicity and severe side effects. Out of 50% patients administrated to chemotherapy, only 5% undergoes survival. Therefore, identification of new drug design and therapeutic strategies that could target cancer cells leaving normal cells unaffected still continues to be a challenge. Despite advances that have led to the development of new therapies, treatment options are still limited for many types of human cancers particularly with those undifferentiated phenotypes. This review provides an overview of metal based anticancer drugs in clinical trials and the serious side effects caused by these drugs led the chemists to search for the new diagnostic and therapeutic agents. In particular, we focus on metal complexes of copper, zinc, silver and gold complexes with an emphasis on the new strategies used in the development of new antitumor agents.

The transition metal complexes provide different molecular mechanisms by targeting either DNA or mitochondria at the cellular level in the path of the development of antitumor drugs.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide