SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND BIOLOGICAL-ACTIVITY OF 3 COPPER(II) COMPLEXES WITH A MODIFIED NITROGENOUS BASE - 5-FORMYLURACIL THIOSEMICARBAZONE

Three Cu(II) co-ordination compounds with a novel ligand, 5-formylurac il thiosemicarbazone (H(3)ut), have been synthesised and characterised by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and subsequently tested in vitro on human leukemic cells. The crystal structures revealed, in all three cases, a square pyramidal co-ordination geometry of the copper atom w ith the ligand lying on the basal plane and behaving as an SNO terdent ate ligand, These three compounds have been tested on human leukemic c ell line K562 and GEM. In these experiments the complexes have demonst rated to inhibit cell growth and one of them to induce apoptosis. In t he paper we also report the spectrophotometric characterization of the free ligand. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.