Metal drug, Cancer, DNA, Protein
More than 99% of the approved clinical drugs are of organic compounds, while metal-containing drugs classified into inorganic compound have very small proportion. In cancer chemotherapy, however, platinum coordination compounds represented by cisplatin and derivatives thereof are essential anticancer agents with proven effects against a variety of tumors. Because of the proven clinical application of these platinum-based drugs, the number of research initiatives to identify other transition metal-based drugs that can be used for cancer therapy has increased considerably in the field of inorganic biochemistry. It is generally believed that the therapeutic effect of cisplatin and derivatives is triggered by the crosslinking of DNA, which is nowadays not the only drug target for transition metal complexes. A variety of unconventional anticancer transition metal complexes have recently been designed through a multiple approach to obtain higher therapeutic efficacy and to overcome disadvantages of the current anticancer drugs, and some are highly promising as next-generation anticancer drugs. In this respect, transition metal complexes have powerful therapeutic effects and certain possibility to improve patient’s quality of life (QOL) and will play a key role in cancer therapy in this century. In this session, recent progress on transition metal complexes in cancer therapy will be presented and updated.