Perspectives in bioinorganic chemistry of some metal based therapeutic agents

The use of metals in therapeutic drugs have become increasingly important over the last couple of decades resulting in a variety of exciting and valuable drugs such as cisplatin and auranofin. The coordination chemistry of metallodrugs is strongly dependent on understanding the thermodynamics (equilibria and structures) and kinetics of the reactions of metal complexes under physiological relevant conditions. In this review, biocoordination chemistry of several metallodrugs (gold antiarthritic, silver antibacterial, vanadium antidiabetic and bismuth antiulcer, drugs) and their possible mechanism of action has been described. Various structure-activity relationships and biochemical aspects of metal binding to cellular targets have been explained. Advances in the bioinorganic chemistry are crucial for improving the design of these compounds to reduce toxic side effects and to understand their mechanism of action. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.