Gold Complexes as Viable Alternatives for Breast Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Background: due to the success of platinum (Pt)-based chemotherapy in fighting several types of cancer, it has led scientists to the power of transition metals. In addition, after the severe side-effects associated with Pt therapy such as resistance to platinum. Gold (Au) compounds have been proved as a promising metals candidate in the search for anti-cancer therapy due to their efficient chemical and biological properties. This study investigated the capability of gold(I) and gold(III) complexes as anticancer agents in breast cancer patients, focusing on their effectiveness and selectivity for the cancer cells away from healthy tissues. The breast cancer cell lines were involved in this study and focused in generating data were MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines. Methods: the research based on systematic literature review conducted using a specific database. The Web of Science was the database for the data obtained in this literature review. Further, the search strategy followed included PRISMA diagram, PICO framework, specific keywords and inclusion and exclusion criteria to end up with papers that allow to extract data from and generate new findings. Results: the data were categorized into numerical and non-numerical datasets, where the numerical data included the values of IC50, which served as the foundation in generating findings. To ensure comparability, several key factors were mathematically calculated, including selectivity index (SI), Auranofin factor, Cisplatin factor and negative receptor factor (NRF). The aim was to effectively connect a specific chemistry question with a related biological question. 11 Conclusion: from the data extracted, valuable results were obtained based on the IC50 values, giving that the lead compounds associated with the best SI, NRF, Auranofin and Cisplatin factors were the Au molecules binds with ligands such as N- Heterocyclic carbene (NHC), Triphenylphosphine (PPh3), Dithiocarbamate (DTC) and Triethyl phosphine (PEt3).