A Bioactive Rhenium(I) Tricarbonyl Complex Bearing a BidentateNitrogen Ligand: Experimental and Theoretical Calculations

Cancer continues to be one of the world's leading causes of mortality, despite the rising corpusof research. The majority of cancer treatments include photodynamic therapy and chemotherapy,with chemotherapy continuing to be the most successful method for increasing patient survival.On the other hand, chemotherapy uses non-selective cytotoxic substances that cause cell death inboth malignant and healthy tissue[۱]. Platinum-based chemotherapy is used to treat more than ۵۰%of cancers. Nevertheless, these medications suffer from serious flaws that hinder theireffectiveness and show physiological side effects, such as toxicity toward healthy, nontumorigeniccells and innate or acquired chemoresistance[۲]. In this regard, organorheniumcomplexes possess several intrinsic properties advantageous for the development of novel anticancerdrug candidates. As shown in Scheme ۱, the reaction of [Re(CO)۵Cl], A, via ۵-methyl-[۲,۲'-bipyrimidine]-۱-N-oxide (bpyNO) ligand afforded a new ReI complex [Re(CO)۳(bpyNO)Cl], ۱.The crystal structure of ۱ was obtained, and this complex was characterized by means of severalspectroscopic and analytical techniques, such as NMR and HR ESI-Mass. Also, theoreticalcalculations were carried out on this complex, and the in vitro cytotoxicity effect of ۱ wasinvestigated against a panel of cancer cell lines.