The research interest in the field of inorganic medicinal chemistry had a large increase after the serendipitous discovery of the cytotoxic activity of cisplatin by Rosenberg at the end of 1960s. Since then, cisplatin has entered clinical practice and become one of the most common treatments for solid tumors. Unfortunately, the use of cisplatin and its derivatives is associated with undesired side effects, such as general toxicity and intrinsic and acquired drug-resistance. For these reasons, alternative metallodrugs based on non- Pt metals have been synthetized, characterized and tested for biological activity in recent years. Although, initially, DNA seemed the exclusive target for metallodrugs [6], successive studies have revealed that various metabolites, peptides and proteins have a central role in the recognition, transport and mechanism of action of these compounds. Thus, a deeper understanding of the molecular bases of the interaction of metallodrugs with these molecules is needed.

doi.org/10.3390/ijms23073504 - 2022