Antiparasitic activities of novel ruthenium/lapachol complexes

The present study describes the synthesis, characterization, antileishmanial and antiplasmodial activities of novel diimine/(2,2'-bipyridine (bipy), 1,10-phenanthroline (phen), 4,4'-methylbipyridine (Me-bipy) and 4,4'-methoxybipyridine (MeO-bipy)/phosphine/ruthenium(II) complexes containing lapachol (Lap, 2-hydroxy-3-(3-33 methyl-2-buthenyl)-1,4-naphthoquinone) as bidentate ligand. The [Ru(Lap)(PPh3)2(bipy)]PF6 (1), [Ru(Lap)(PPh3)2(Me-bipy)]PF6 (2), [Ru(Lap)(PPh3)2(MeO-bipy)]PF6(3) and[Ru(Lap)(PPh3)2(phen)]PF6 (4) complexes, PPh3=triphenylphospine, were synthesized from the reactions of cis-[RuCl2(PPh3)2(X-bipy)] or cis-[RuCl2(PPh3)2(phen)], with lapachol. The [RuCl2(Lap)(dppb)] (5) [dppb=1,4-bis(diphenylphosphine)butane] was synthesized from the mer-[RuCl3(dppb)(H2O)] complex. The complexes were characterized by elemental analysis, molar conductivity, infrared and UV-vis spectroscopy, (31)P{(1)H} and (1)H NMR, and cyclic voltammetry. The Ru(III) complex, [RuCl2(Lap)(dppb)], was also characterized by the EPR technique. The structure of the complexes [Ru(Lap)(PPh3)2(bipy)]PF6 and [RuCl2(Lap)(dppb)] was elucidated by X-ray diffraction. The evaluation of the antiparasitic activities of the complexes against Leishmania amazonensis and Plasmodium falciparum demonstrated that lapachol-ruthenium complexes are more potent than the free lapachol. The [RuCl2(Lap)(dppb)] complex is the most potent and selective antiparasitic compound among the five new ruthenium complexes studied in this work, exhibiting an activity comparable to the reference drugs.