Recent advances in anticancer ruthenium Schiff base complexes

Abstract Nowadays in cancer treatment, both metal complexes and organic molecules are being widely used. Current years have seen a surge of interest in the application of organometallic compounds to treat cancer and other diseases. Undeniably, the unique properties of organometallic compounds, intermediate between those of classical inorganic and organic materials, provide new opportunities in the field of medicinal chemistry. Since the discovery of cisplatin, many transition metal complexes have been synthesized and assayed for anticancer activity. In recent years, ruthenium‐based Schiff base complexes have emerged as promising antitumor and antimetastatic agents with potential uses in treatment of platinum‐resistant tumors or as alternatives to platinum‐based chemotherapy. Advantages of utilizing ruthenium complexes in drug development include reliable methods of synthesizing stable complexes; the ability to tune ligand affinities, electron transfer and substitution rates, and reduction potentials; and an increasing knowledge of the biological effects of such complexes. This great expansion of ruthenium‐based Schiff base complexes is mainly due to the unique ability of the ruthenium core to permit multiple oxidation states, hence versatile electron‐transfer pathways, and because of the ease of preparation with versatile and variable‐denticity Schiff base ligands. This review aims to bring the reader up to date with the more recent Ru(II)/(III)‐based Schiff base complexes that have been synthesized and investigated for their cytotoxicity.