Synthesis of gold(I) organometallic compounds with potential biological activity

Abstract

One of the main interest of alkynylgold(I) compounds are their therapeutic properties, especially their activity as anticancer agents. This TFG focuses on the synthesis of water-soluble alkynylgold(I) organometallic derivatives that could present biological activity as anticancer agents. Preliminary experiments with related compounds (derivatives with diphosphine ligands containing phenyl substituents), have shown promising results that could be improved by increasing the solubility in water of the complexes. The reason is that these present important water-solubility problems that preclude their use as drugs. The introduction of polar functional groups on the ligands has been studied, to determine which functionalized phosphines show more promise as ligands for both water-soluble mononuclear and binuclear gold(I) complexes. Subsequently synthesis of monophosphine ligand Ph2PCH2OH (1b) and diphosphine [1,2-bis(hydroxymethylphenylphosphino)ethane] (hmppe) (1a) was undertaken with successful results...