Fundamental Toxicological Sciences

Paper Details

Fundamental Toxicological Sciences
Vol. 3 No. 3 May 11, 2016 p.109-113
Letter
Cytotoxicity of zinc, copper and rhodium complexes with 1,10-phenanthroline or 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline in cultured vascular endothelial cells
  • Toshiyuki Kaji (Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science / Division of Bio-organometallics, Research Institute for Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science / t-kaji@rs.tus.ac.jp)
Takato Hara 1) , Hiroka Matsuzaki 1) , Takehiro Nakamura 1) , Eiko Yoshida 1) , Takanori Ohkubo 2) , Hiroki Maruyama 2) , Chika Yamamoto 3) , Shinichi Saito 2) 4) , Toshiyuki Kaji 1) 4)
1) Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science , 2) Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Tokyo University of Science , 3) Department of Environmental Health, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University , 4) Division of Bio-organometallics, Research Institute for Science and Technology, Tokyo University of Science
Keywords: Bio-organometallics, Coordination compound, 1,10-Phenanthroline, Cytotoxicity, Metal, Vascular endothelial cell
Abstracts

Organic-inorganic hybrid molecules, which have organic structure and metal atoms, can exhibit various biological activities that are distinctly different from their components. Consequently, organic-inorganic hybrid molecules are considered an effective tool to analyze biological systems. Herein, we investigated the cytotoxicity of zinc, copper, and rhodium complexes, with either 1,10-phenanthroline or 2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline as a common ligand, in cultured vascular endothelial cells. The copper complexes, that is, dichloro(1,10-phenanthroline) copper and dichloro(2,9-dimethyl-1,10-phenanthroline) copper, exhibited high cytotoxicity accompanied by considerable accumulation inside the cells. Potassium tetrachloro(1,10-phenanthroline) rhodate also exhibited cytotoxicity and considerable accumulation. Thus, it was found that the cytotoxicity of organic-inorganic hybrid molecules to vascular endothelial cells depends on the interaction between the intramolecular metal and ligand, which facilitates their uptake by the cells.