Cytotoxic evaluation of dinuclear ruthenium p-cymene complex with the mononuclear counterpart: A structural perspective.

Human cancer is a complex and highly diverse disease based on multiple aetiologies, multiple cell targets and distinct developmental stages. Notably, ruthenium-based complexes have emerged as good alternatives to traditional platinum-based drugs for cancer therapy. In this context, a mono and a dinuclear novel ruthenium(II) p-cymene complex formulated as [(p-cymene)Ru(L)Cl](PF) and [(p-cymene)Ru(L)Cl](PF) (L = N-(3,5-di(pyridin-2-yl)-4H-1,2,4-triazol-4-yl)-1,8-naphthalimide) respectively have been synthesized and characterized by different spectroscopic techniques i.e., UV-vis, H NMR, C NMR, COSY, FT-IR and mass spectrometry. The molecular structures for both complexes were determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Their cyclic voltammetry has also been performed. In addition, cytotoxicity against cancer cell growth was examined using two human breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7. Both the complex exhibited strong DNA cleavage activity in vitro. However, cytotoxicity, cell viability and ROS production ability of [(p-cymene)Ru(L)Cl](PF) was found to be comparatively higher against triple negative breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231.