• glycoconjugates
• Ruthenium complexes
• trichloroacetimidates
• vinyl epoxides

After the advent of cisplatin in cancer therapy, new metal complexes with antitumor activity based on ruthenium, showing an increased activity and fewer side effects, have been identified recently. In this case, to the typical mechanism of action already known for the platinum-based complexes, which consists in the formation of monofunctional N(7)-coordinates with purine bases of DNA, it is also added the ability of these new complexes to form adducts with proteins such as albumin and transferrin, that act as a “Trojan Horse” for transporting the complex into the cancer cell.

In this thesis project we wanted to evaluate if new ruthenium-based complexes conjugated with different carbohydrate units could be able to increase the selectivity towards tumor cells. The new glycoconjugates could, in fact, exploit the GLUT membrane carriers, overexpressed in the tumor cells and thus drastically increase the uptake of the antitumor complexes in the cancer cells.

The main purpose of this thesis project, was to operate the synthesis of a set of new carbohydrate based-triphenylphosphine ligands that could be conjugated with ruthenium complexes.