Unravelling the anticancer potential of a square planar copper complex: toward non-platinum chemotherapy
Manzoor Ahmad Malik, Md Kausar Raza, Arif Mohammed, Mohmmad Younus Wani, Abdullah S. Al‐Bogami, Athar Adil Hashmi
Abstract
values lower than those of the widely used anticancer drug cisplatin. Assessment of the morphological changes by DAPI staining and ROS generation by DCFH-DA assay exposed that the cell death occurred by caspase-3 mediated apoptosis. C1 displayed interesting interactions with Ct-DNA, evidenced by absorption spectroscopy and validated by docking studies. Together, our results suggest that binding of the ligand to the DNA-binding domain of the p53 tumor suppressor (p53DBD) protein and the induction of the apoptotic hallmark protein, caspase-3, upon treatment with the metal complex could be positively attributed to a higher level of ROS and the subsequent DNA damage (oxidation), generated by the complex C1, that could well explain the interesting anticancer activity observed for this complex.