Comparative anti-proliferative activity of some new 2-(arylazo)phenolate–palladium (II) complexes and cisplatin against some human cancer cell lines

Abstract

In this study, we report the synthesis of four 2-(arylazo)phenol–Pd(II) complexes and their anti-proliferative property against the human lung cancer (A549), cervical cancer (HeLa), and ovarian teratocarcinoma (PA-1) cell lines with cisplatin as the gold standard. One of the complexes, [Pd(L²)₂], induced robust apoptosis in all the chosen cells, as revealed by annexin-V-positive/propidium iodide dual staining, increased sub-G1 cell cycle population, and significant morphological changes in the treated cells. The Pd complex inflicted mitochondrial dysfunction leading to mitochondrial membrane potential loss, reactive oxygen species generation and release of cytosolic cytochrome c that activated caspase-9 and caspase-3 proteins which finally caused programmed cell death.

Keywords::

• 2-(Arylazo)phenolate complexes of palladium
• human lung cancer cell line
• ROS
• caspase-3

Acknowledgement

We thankfully acknowledge the University Grant Commission, India for providing infrastructural support to the Department of Biochemistry, University of Calcutta as Centre for Advanced Studies in Biochemistry and for funding the scientific work and fellowship. We are also thankful to Prof. Subrata Chattyopadhyay, Head, Bio- Organic division, BARC, India for his critical comments and valuable suggestion.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

Supplementary material available online

Supplementary Figures 1–2 to be found at online http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10715762.2014.998665.