Luminescent naphthalimide-tagged ruthenium(<scp>ii</scp>)–arene complexes: cellular imaging, photocytotoxicity and transferrin binding
Payal Srivastava, Madhu Verma, Anmol Kumar, Priyanka Srivastava, Ramranjan Mishra, Sri Sivakumar, Ashis K. Patra
Abstract
, thereby acting as potential PDT agents. Fluorescence microscopy studies revealed that luminescent complexes preferentially localized in both the lysosomes and nucleus for effectively targeting and damaging the nuclear DNA for PDT effects. Due to enhanced lipophilicity of [RuLCl], it showed higher internalization into MCF-7 cell, measured in terms of the ruthenium content using ICP-MS. The interaction of the complexes with human transferrin (hTf) proteins was studied through molecular docking calculations, suggesting favorable binding through histidine residues and possible internalization into cancer cells via TfR-mediated endocytosis. The luminescence properties of the complexes were well-utilized to study their cellular uptake mechanism via endocytosis using fluorescence microscopy.