Organometallic Antitumour Agents with Alternative Modes of Action

The therapeutic index of drugs that target DNA, a ubiquitous target present in nearly all cells, is low. Nevertheless, DNA has remained the primary target for medicinal chemists developing metal-based anticancer drugs, although DNA has been essentially abandoned in favour of non-genomic targets by medicinal chemists developing organic drugs. A number of organometallic drugs that target proteins/enzymes have been developed and these compounds, based on ruthenium, osmium and gold, are described in this chapter. Targets include cathepsin B, thioredoxin reductases, multidrug resistance protein (Pgp), glutathione S-transferases and kinases. It is found that compounds that inhibit these various targets are active against metastatic tumours, or tumours that are resistant to classical DNA damaging agents such as cisplatin, and therefore offer considerable potential in clinical applications.