Biological Activity of Ruthenium Complexes With Quinoline Antibacterial and Antimalarial Drugs

This chapter presents the state-of-the-art and future perspectives of ruthenium complexes with three quinoline-based classes of antibacterial and antimalarial compounds. The validity and potential of the inclusion of metal-containing species as a strategy for the development of new drugs is discussed with the case study of ruthenium complexes with antibacterial quinolone and 8-hydroxyquinoline agents as well as antimalarial 4-aminoquinoline agents. Furthermore, the approach to the biological evaluation and the search for the correlation between structure, physicochemical properties, and biological activity from the point of view of the parent (clinically used) ligand as well as of the metallic species is presented.