Self-assembly of novel molecular complexes of 1,10-phenanthroline and 5-amino-1,10-phenanthroline and evaluation of their in vitro antitumour activity

Abstract Novel molecular complexes of 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) and 5-amino-1,10-phenanthroline (5-NH 2 -phen) [(5-NH 2 -phen) 2 (phen) (H 2 O) 3 ( 1 ), (phen) 2 (imidazole) (H + ) (BF 4 − ) ( 2 ), (phen) 2 (benzimidazole) (H + ) (BF 4 − ) ( 3 ), (5-NH 2 -phen) 4 (H 2 O) 3 ( 4 ), and (phen) 3 (indole) (H + ) (BF 4 − ) ( 5 )] were synthesized via self-assembly processes and their in vitro anticancer activity was investigated. The structures of the compounds were confirmed by UV, FTIR, CIMS(CH 4 ) and elemental analysis. The crystal structure of 2  was determined by X-ray diffraction. Cytotoxicity of the substances was measured using the cultivated human tumour cell lines HepG2, HEp-2, and 8-MB-GA. The tested substances showed different activity depending on the cell line and amount used. Substances 2 and 3 were not toxic to the non-tumour cells (Lep-3), but significantly toxic to all tumour ones. This is not the case with compounds 4 and 5 , which are non-toxic towards carcinogenic cell lines, but even stimulate both HepG2 and HEp-2.