Vanadium complexes with polypyridyl ligands: Speciation, structure and potential medicinal activity.

This review focuses on the interaction between the essential element‑vanadium with 1,10-phenanthroline and polypyridyl ligands. It starts with a summary of the prior work on speciation studies for the binary systems vanadium-phenanthroline alongside several hydrolytic studies of the metal ion. It also includes a complete overview on the different X-ray structures known to date with discussions on the potential cytotoxic activity of several vanadium-polypyridyl complexes.

Vanadium: History, chemistry, interactions with α-amino acids and potential therapeutic applications.

In the last 30 years, since the discovery that vanadium is a cofactor found in certain enzymes of tunicates and possibly in mammals, different vanadium-based drugs have been developed targeting to treat different pathologies. So far, the studies of the insulin mimetic, antitumor and antiparasitic activity of certain compounds of vanadium have resulted in a great boom of its inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. Chemical speciation studies of vanadium with amino acids under controlled conditions or, even in blood plasma, are essential for the understanding of the biotransformation of e.