Nitric oxide release and related light-induced cytotoxicity of ruthenium nitrosyls with coordinated nicotinate derivatives.

The synthetic approaches for the preparation of (NO,OH)-(NO,NO)-[RuNO(L)(NO)OH], where L = ethyl nicotinate (I) and methyl nicotinate (II), are reported. The structures of the complexes are characterized by X-ray diffraction and analyzed by Hirshfeld surface analysis. Both compounds show a nitric oxide release reaction under 445 or 532 nm irradiation of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solutions, which is studied by combined ultraviolet-visible- (UV-vis), infrared- (IR), and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and density functional theory (DFT) calculations.