Aminophosphonate metal complexes of biomedical potential

Metals and their complexes with organic ligands have an important role in biochemical systems such as enzymatic catalysis, metal ion transfer across the cell membranes, treatment of malignancy, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcer and other types of diseases. Special attention is directed to metal complexes with ligands which are important in biological systems, as their incorporation into metallo-organic compounds offers much scope for design of potential metal-based agents that provide new opportunities in the medicinal chemistry. In view of this, derivatives of aminophosphonic acids, owing to their broad spectrum of biological activities and wide range of applications in the medicinal and agrochemical fields, are very attractive metal-ligand agents that might form biomedical important metal complexes. Thus, a number of aminophosphonate complexes of platinum group metals have been found to possess remarkable antitumor activity while complexes of some other transition and rare-earth metals like technetium, rhenium, samarium and gadolinium have been used either as therapeutic and diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals or as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents. In addition, the high phosphonate affinity towards bone and other calcified tissues may be utilized for the drug targeting based on synthesis of metal complexes linked to bioactive carrier systems, affording better modalities of attack to the site of pathology. In this review article, aminophosphonate metal-based compounds with potential biomedical applications are described.