MEANING-full effects in information retrieval

This deliverable reports on testing the use and effect of the integration of the MEANING technology in the TwentyOne search engine of Irion

New trends for metal complexes with anticancer activity

Medicinal inorganic chemistry can exploit the unique properties of metal ions for the design of new drugs. This has, for instance, led to the clinical application of chemotherapeutic agents for cancer treatment, such as cisplatin. The use of cisplatin is, however, severely limited by its toxic side-effects. This has spurred chemists to employ different strategies in the development of new metal-based anticancer agents with different mechanisms of action. Recent trends in the field are discussed in this review. These include the more selective delivery and/or activation of cisplatin-related prodrugs and the discovery of new non-covalent interactions with the classical target, DNA. The use of the metal as scaffold rather than reactive centre and the departure from the cisplatin paradigm of activity towards a more targeted, cancer cell-specific approach, a major trend, are discussed as well. All this, together with the observation that some of the new drugs are organometallic complexes, illustrates that exciting times lie ahead for those interested in ‘metals in medicine

Non-conventional trans-platinum complexes functionalized with RDG peptides: chemical and cytototoxicity studies

In order to target platinum complexes to cancer cells, trans-Pt(II) or trans-Pt(IV) complexes were bioconjugated to the cyclic peptide cRGDfK (cRGD), with affinity for αvβ3 integrin receptors, through their 4-picolinic acid spectator ligands. To tackle this goal, the Pt(II) and Pt(IV) precursors were activated at their carboxylic acid function and futher reacted with the cRGDfK peptide, to afford the bioconjugates Pt(II)-cRGD and Pt(IV)-cRGD, respectively. Pt(II)-cRGD was studied by 195Pt-NMR that confirmed the presence of the Pt(II) center. In contrast, the characterization of Pt(IV)-cRGD was not possible due to the tendency of this complex to undergo reduction to Pt(II) in solution. Thus, only the Pt(II)-cRGD complex was used for further biological studies, and it exhibited some cytotoxic activity against the HUVEC cell line, with the highest levels of αvβ3 expression. However, no improved effects were observed with respect to the Pt(II)-pic precursor. Studies by ICP-MS showed enhanced intracellular accumulation for Pt(II)-cRGD with respect to Pt(II)-pic in cancer cells. Overall, these results show that while Pt(II) bioconjugation enhances compound's uptake, it did not translate into an increase in cytotoxicity