Synthesis and Evaluation of the Antitumor Properties of a Small Collection of Pt^II Complexes with 7-Deazaadenosine as Scaffold

Herein we report on the synthesis and evaluation of the preliminary antitumor properties of a small collection of platinum(II) complexes in which a cisplatin-like unit is tethered to 7-deazaadenosine through linear alkyl chains (from two to six carbon atoms) installed at the purine C6 position. The complexation was performed by exploiting the reactivity of the bidentate amino ligands (R)- and (S)-2,3-diaminopropanoic acids (DAPA) attached to the end of the alkyl chain spacer. By varying the length of the alkyl chain and the chirality of the DAPA moiety we obtained 10 novel nucleoside–platinum complexes, the anticancer properties of which have been evaluated against the A549 and Cal27 human cancer cell lines.