Phosphorescent Iridium(III) Complexes for Anticancer Applications
Ruilin Guan, Lina Xie, Liang‐Nian Ji, Hui Chao
Abstract
Great attention has been bestowed upon iridium(III) complexes as anticancer agents in recent years, and a variety of them, in particular, are luminescent. The phosphorescence of these compounds facilitates the visualization and monitoring of their subcellular localization and interactions with other molecules or structures during anticancer therapy, which might help demonstrate the inner pathways and molecular mechanisms of the complexes. In this review, we focus on the development of phosphorescent iridium(III) complexes for anticancer applications in recent five years and intend to highlight some newly reported Ir(III) complexes that are targeting specific organelles, inducing different cell death modes, or photoactivated agents in phototherapies including photodynamic therapy and photoredox catalysis.