COPPER,COBALT AND NICKEL COMPLEXES AS ANTICANCER DRUGS

Cancer is undoubtedly one of the main health concerns facing our society and one of the primary targets regarding medicinal chemistry. Even though platinum-based complexes had been in primary focus of research on chemotherapy agents, the interests in this field have shifted to non-platinumbased agents in order to find different metal complexes with less side effects and similar, or better, cytotoxicity. Thus, a wide variety of metal complexes based on titanium, gallium, germanium, palladium, gold, cobalt, ruthenium and tin are being intensively studied as platinum replacements . Furthermore, copper(II)-based complexes appear to be very promising candidates for anticancer therapy; an idea supported by a considerable number of research articles describing the synthesis and cytotoxic activities of numerous copper(II) complexes.The choice of the coordinated ligand(s) seems to be as important as the choice of metal(s) because besides being the integral part of biologically active complexes these organic molecules (ligands) can exert a biological activity of their own. Complexes incorporating 3-hydroxy-5-hydroxymethyl-2- methylpyridine-4-carboxaldehyde-3-methylisotiosemicarbazone (pyridoxal-thiosemicarbazone or PLTSC) ligand have not only been in focus of anticancer research in past several years but also an inspiration for the synthesis of a new ligand .