Synthesis, physicochemical and pharmacological characterizations of a tetra-[methylimidazolium] dihydrogen decavanadate, inhibiting the IGR39 human melanoma cells development

Melanoma is a skin cancer that arises from melanocytes and can spread quickly to the other organs of the body, if not treated early. Generally, melanoma shows an inherent resistance to conventional therapies. In this regard, new potential drugs are being developed as possible treatments for melanoma. In this paper, we report the synthesis of a new decavanadate compound with organic molecules for a potential therapeutic application. The tetra-[methylimidazolium] dihydrogen decavanadate(V) salt (C4H7N2)4[H2V10O28] 4 H 7 N 2 ) 4 [H 2 V 10 O 28 ] is characterized by single- crystal X-ray diffraction, by FT-IR, UV-Vis and 51 V NMR spectroscopy, as well as by thermal analysis (TGA and DSC). The compound crystallizes in the monoclinic centrosymmetric space group P 2 1 / c . Its formula unit consists of one dihydrogen decavanadate anion [H 2 V 10 O 28 ] 4- and four organic 4-methylimidazolium cations (C4H7N2)+. 4 H 7 N 2 ) + . Important intermolecular interactions are N-H & sdot;& sdot;& sdot;O and O-H & sdot;& sdot;& sdot;O hydrogen bonds and it-it stacking interactions between the organic cations, revealed by analysis of the Hirshfeld surface and its two-dimensional fingerprint plots. Interestingly, this compound inhibits the viability of IGR39 cells with IC50 50 values of 14.65 mu M and 4 mu M after 24 h and 72 h of treatment, respectively. The analysis of its effect by flow cytometry using an Annexin V-FITC/IP cell labeling, showed that (C 4 H 7 N 2 ) 4 H 2 V 10 O 28 compound induced IGR39 cell apoptosis and necrosis. Molecular docking studies performed against TNFR1 and GPR40, as putative targets, suggest that the (C4H7N2)4[H2V10O28] 4 H 7 N 2 ) 4 [H 2 V 10 O 28 ] compound may act as inhibitor of these proteins, known to be overexpressed in melanoma cells. Therefore, we could consider it as a new potential metallodrug against melanoma.