Red-Light Activation of a Microtubule Polymerization Inhibitor via Amide Functionalization of the Ruthenium Photocage.

Photoactivated chemotherapy (PACT) is a promising cancer treatment modality that kills cancer cells via photochemical uncaging of a cytotoxic drug. Most ruthenium-based photocages used for PACT are activated with blue or green light, which penetrates sub-optimally into tumor tissues. Here, we report amide functionalization as a tool to fine-tune the toxicity and excited states of a terpyridine-based ruthenium photocage.

MetalDock: An Open Access Docking Tool for Easy and Reproducible Docking of Metal Complexes.

Despite the proven potential of metal complexes as therapeutics, the lack of computational tools available for the high-throughput screening of their interactions with proteins is a limiting factor toward clinical developments. To address this challenge, we introduce MetalDock, an easy-to-use, open access docking software for docking metal complexes to proteins. Our tool integrates the AutoDock docking engine with three well-known quantum software packages to automate the docking of metal-organic complexes to proteins.

Ligand Rigidity Steers the Selectivity and Efficiency of the Photosubstitution Reaction of Strained Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complexes.

While photosubstitution reactions in metal complexes are usually thought of as dissociative processes poorly dependent on the environment, they are, in fact, very sensitive to solvent effects. Therefore, it is crucial to explicitly consider solvent molecules in theoretical models of these reactions. Here, we experimentally and computationally investigated the selectivity of the photosubstitution of diimine chelates in a series of sterically strained ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes in water and acetonitrile.

Selective C-H Olefination of Indolines (C5) and Tetrahydroquinolines (C6) by Pd/S,O-Ligand Catalysis.

Herein, we report a highly selective C-H olefination of directing-group-free indolines (C5) and tetrahydroquinolines (C6) by Pd/S,O-ligand catalysis. In the presence of the S,O-ligand, a wide range of challenging indolines, tetrahydroquinolines, and olefins was efficiently olefinated under mild reaction conditions. The synthetic potential of this methodology was demonstrated by the efficient olefination of several indoline-based natural products.