Polymer encapsulation of anticancer silver-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes

H A Mohamed; M Khuphe; S J Boardman; S Shepherd; R M Phillips; P D Thornton; C E Willans

doi:10.1039/c8ra00450a

Polymer encapsulation of anticancer silver-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes

RSC Adv. 2018 Mar 15;8(19):10474-10477. doi: 10.1039/c8ra00450a. eCollection 2018 Mar 13.

Authors

H A Mohamed¹, M Khuphe¹, S J Boardman¹, S Shepherd², R M Phillips², P D Thornton¹, C E Willans¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, University of Leeds Woodhouse Lane Leeds LS2 9JT UK c.e.willans@leeds.ac.uk.
² Department of Pharmacy, University of Huddersfield Queensgate Huddersfield HD1 3DH UK.

Abstract

Amphiphilic block copolymers have been developed for the encapsulation of organometallic drugs. silver-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes have shown significant promise as anticancer and antibacterial compounds, and have been studied as the payload in these carriers. Simple modification of the N-heterocyclic carbene ligand structure enables solubility properties and interaction with the polymer to be tuned.