Review: Bismuth complexes: synthesis and applications in biomedicine

Abstract

A variety of bismuth complexes have been extensively explored in biomedical applications. The well-known low toxicity and environmental friendliness of bismuth salts make them valuable for large-scale synthesis of various bismuth-based complexes, which become more significant as active pharmaceutical ingredients of medical products. Bismuth complexes have been widely and preferably used in biomedicine with satisfactory therapeutic effect, which is highlighted in this review. However, their synthesis methods have been scarcely summarized. The classification of the main synthesis methods of bismuth complexes has been done here, followed by updates of the relevant advances concerning applications in biomedicine such as therapeutic effect on gastrointestinal diseases, antimicrobial, and anticancer activities, and the description of the side effect and biotoxicity resulting from long-term use of bismuth as well. Bismuth containing metal–organic frameworks, newly developed bismuth-based materials, are also discussed here, becoming a hot research topic recently. An outlook for future study on the potential use of bismuth complexes in biomedicine is provided in the end.

This paper reviews the synthesis and biomedical applications of bismuth complexes with unusually low toxicity and excellent clinical performances, summarizes their main synthesis methods, and biomedical applications as drugs for the therapeutic treatment of gastrointestinal disease, Helicobacter pylori infection, and various cancers; especially, describes the development of bismuth-based MOFs in the drug delivery and potential application in cancer treatment.

Keywords:

• Bismuth complexes
• Synthesis methods
• MOFs
• Biomedical application

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 21305090], [grant number 21401130]; the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation [grant number 13ZR1428300]; the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission [grant number 14YZ086], [grant number 14ZZ139]; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (to Shuang Zhou). The authors greatly appreciate these supports.