Potent Inhibition of Thioredoxin Reductase by the Rh Derivatives of Anticancer M(arene/Cp*)(NHC)Cl2 Complexes

Metal complexes provide a versatile platform to develop novel anticancer pharmacophores, and they form stable compounds with N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands, some of which have been shown to inhibit the cancer-related selenoenzyme thioredoxin reductase (TrxR). To expand a library of isostructural NHC complexes, we report here the preparation of RhIII- and IrIII(Cp*)(NHC)Cl2 (Cp* = η5-pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) compounds and comparison of their properties to the RuII- and OsII(cym) analogues (cym = η6-p-cymene). Like the RuII- and OsII(cym) complexes, the RhIII- and IrIII(Cp*) derivatives exhibit cytotoxic activity with half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) values in the low micromolar range against a set of four human cancer cell lines. In studies on the uptake and localization of the compounds in cancer cells by X-ray fluorescence microscopy, the Ru and Os derivatives were shown to accumulate in the cytoplasmic region of treated cells. In an attempt to tie the localization of the compounds to the inhibition of the tentative target TrxR, it was surprisingly found that only the Rh complexes showed significant inhibitory activity at IC50 values of ∼1 μM, independent of the substituents on the NHC ligand. This indicates that, although TrxR may be a potential target for anticancer metal complexes, it is unlikely the main target or the sole target for the Ru, Os, and Ir compounds described here, and other targets should be considered. In contrast, Rh(Cp*)(NHC)Cl2 complexes may be a scaffold for the development of TrxR inhibitors.