Anticancer activity of a mononuclear Zn(II) complex with 5,6-diphenyl-3-(2-pyridyl)-1,2,4-triazine against human breast carcinoma cells

In modern medicinal chemistry, transition metal complexes have become suitable candidates as anticancer drugs and chemotherapeutic agents in clinics, the most important examples are cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin. Although cisplatin can act as an effective anticancer drug, but use of cisplatin is severely limited by its toxic side-effects. Currentstudies illustrate significant recent development in the field of medicinal bioinorganic chemistry, many new approacheshave been done in order to the design and synthesis of new metal-based anticancer agents with a better biological activity,better selectivity, lower toxicities and different mechanisms of action to overcome the side-effects of cisplatin analoguesdrugs. The main aim of this paper is to study the anticancer properties of the zinc(II) complex, [Zn(dppt)2Cl2] (dppt is 5,6- diphenyl-3-(2-pyridyl)-1,2,4-triazine). The complex has been synthesized and characterized. The cytotoxicity of the complex has been tested against the human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cell lines by the MTT assay. The concentrationof the Zn(II) complex ranged from 0.05–40 μM. Live cell images were acquired directly using an inverted microscopewithout any treatment or staining. Microscopic analyses of the MCF-7 cells treated with the Zn(II) complex that show thedecreases in the number of the MCF-7 cells with increasing the concentration of the complex. The results of the plot ofpercentage of cytotoxicity vs. concentration of the complex indicate that the complex displays cytotoxicity against human breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7) with an IC50 value of 10.44 μM. It is remarkable that the complex can introduce as a potential anticancer drug.

Keywords:

Zinc(II) complex , 5 , 6-diphenyl- 3-(2-pyridyl)-1 , 2 , 4-triazine(dppt) , anticancer drug , MCF-7