Coordination compounds as Chemotherapy drugs

[Aurbal Popal]

So I was looking at Lecture Outline 5 and one of the things we had to know was to "discuss well-known examples of coordination compounds used as chemotherapy drugs". I look in the textbook but all I can seem to find is the biological functions of coordination compounds but nothing on chemotherapy... Anybody have any idea what this means or what we are supposed to know for this?

[Ibrahim Malik 1H]

A coordination compound that is used as a chemotherapy drug is cisplatin. It binds to the replication site in DNA and prevents cancer cells from replicating.

[RoopshaChatterjee 1G]

Are there any other coordination compounds that have biological importance relevant to what we're learning?

[Erik Buetow 1F]

I believe the only one of these that we need to know would be about cisplatin which we talked about in class.

[Jennifer Yang 3F]

I believe we have to know about cisplatin, which is a well-known coordination compound used in chemotherapy, and we also discussed it in class.

[kendal mccarthy]

The main drug discussed in class was cisplatin. Which is square planar and has 2 amine groups on one side and 2 chloride groups on the other side.

[David Y]

cisplatin is stronger as the chlorines are on the same side

[John Calonia 1D]

It is important to recognize the difference between cisplatin and translation and just know that the structure of the compound leads to its effectiveness as a chemotherapy drug, where cisplatin has the ability to cause cell death through its attachment to two adjacent guanine bases while transplatin cannot do the same due to its single chlorine atom on each side of the compound

[Eliana Carney 3E]

Hey Arubal!
In Lecture #24 Dr. Lavelle talks about a chemotherapy drug called cisplatin. I would assume this is what the syllabus is referring too, especially since the textbook doesn't talk about any additional chemotherapy drugs.
Basically, we learned that the coordination compound cisdiamine-dichloro-platinum(II), commonly called cisplatin, is a very common chemotherapy drug. When you draw the Lewis structure of this compound, you will see that there are two chloride atoms on the same side of the structure. These chloride atoms, when next to GC base pairs, are released and nitrogen atoms with lone pairs located in the DNA bond to the platinum atom in their place.
This bond between the nitrogens in the DNA and the platinum atom stops the DNA from splitting and duplicating, an action that must happen for cancerous tumors to form. When the DNA cannot divide, the cell containing the DNA dies.
This is effective in treating cancer because the cisdiamine-dichloro-platinum(II) kills the cancerous cells. However, this drug is quite aggressive because it cannot distinguish between cancerous cells and healthy cells, so it attacks and kills both. Doctors still use cisdiamine-dichloro-platinum(II) to treat cancer because the DNA in a healthy cell is more protected than the DNA in a cancerous cell because cancerous cells duplicate more rapidly, leaving their DNA more exposed. This makes it easier for cisdiamine-dichloro-platinum(II) to come in and kill the cancerous cells compared to the healthy cells.
Hope this response helps!

[Nick Saeedi 1I]

I think we just need to know about cisplatin and how it is used in chemotherapy treatments by disrupting cell replication.