Platinum compounds are well established as chemotherapy agents (1). I now report on much safer, water-soluble organo-palladium complexes, undergoing clinical oncology studies. Structure analyses included FTIR, column separations, osmometry, and elemental analysis. The core unit of the polymer consists of a palladium bonded to both end groups of a lipoic acid: two sulfurs of the thiolane ring, and the carboxyl oxygens of the pentanoic chain. Three such core units become trimerized when complexed with a single thiamine. Column separations show further polymerization of the trimers is possible, and this appears due to the reducing environment.
These compounds appear to have charge transfer properties in biologic systems. The core complex and its polymers reduce nucleic acids as shown by cyclic voltammetry. Preliminary data show the reducing force of the complex can be regenerated by interaction with hydroxyl fatty acids. The reducing current of the trimers can be directed preferentially to DNA (not RNA) by the presence of cyanocobalamin. The trimer with cyanocobalamin produces heterochromatin in Baker's yeast. The yeasts then produce aberrant forms including those undergoing degeneration in a radial sectioning pattern resembling the cutting of a desert pie. The data suggest the induction of an inward current, starting at the membrane and converging an DNA.
1.- S.J. Lippard and J.M.Berg, Principles of Bioinorganic Chemistry, University Science Books, Mill Valley California, (1994 ), p.141.
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