New triazole-based coordination complexes as antitumor agents against triple negative breast cancer MDA-MB-468 cell line.

The present work describes the synthesis of a new triazole based ligand 3-(3,5-dimethyl-1 H -pyrazol-1-yl)-1-methyl-1 H -1,2,4-triazole (LM) and demonstration of its coordination diversity giving rise to a family of seven new coordination complexes, namely: [Ni(LM) 3 ](ClO 4 ) 2 ·C 2 H 6 OS (5), [Co 2 (LM) 6 ](ClO 4 ) 4 ·(C 2 H 5 )O (6), [Cd(LM) 2 Cl 2 ] (7), [Cu(LM) 2 NO 3 ]NO 3 (8), [Fe(LM) 3 ](BF 4 ) 2 (9), [Zn(LM) 3 ](BF 4 ) 2 (10) and [Zn(LM) 2 NO 3 ]NO 3 (11), whose crystal structure was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Cytotoxic activity was evaluated against the MDA-MB-468 cancer cell line, which serves as a model for triple-negative breast cancer, and compared to the precursor molecule (L), as well as their coordination complexes (H 3 O){[NiL 3 ](ClO 4 ) 3 } (1), [CoL 3 ](ClO 4 ) 2 ·2H 2 O (2), [CdL 2 Cl 2 ] (3) and [CuL 3 ](NO 3 ) 2 (4), for which the crystal structure was earlier determined. Notably, cadmium complexes 3 and 7 exhibit remarkable cytotoxicity and demonstrated a high selectivity index towards cancer cells when compared to peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Such activity highlights their potential function as anticancer agents.