Enhanced anticancer activity of half-sandwich Ru(II)-p-cymene complex bearing heterocyclic hydrazone ligand

Abstract The hydrazone ligand (HL) was synthesized from furan-2-carbohydrazide and indole-3-carboxaldehyde. The reaction of [RuCl2(p-cymene)]2 with HL in the presence of sodium methoxide yielded organometallic Ru(II)-p-cymene compound of the type [Ru(η6-p-cymene)(η2-N,O-indole hydrazone)] (1). The ligand and complex were characterized by CHN analysis and various spectroscopic tools. The piano stool (pseudo-octahedral) geometry of the complex was confirmed by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The anticancer property of the ligand and complex was investigated against A549, HeLa and MCF7 cancer cell lines. The complex exhibited superior activity against A549 and HeLa cancer cells with the IC50 values of 23.4 and 12.9 µM respectively.