Benzothiazole metallic complexes with Tc and Pt as a potential alternative for cancer diagnosis

Abstract

Currently, cancer is one of the major health problems in the world, which is responsible for many deaths. Among the most common types of cancer, breast cancer can be highlighted, once it is one of the most frequent manifestations of the disease, in which often leads to death. The main treatments used against breast cancer are chemotherapy, radiation therapy and mastectomy. However, these techniques are invasive to the body and mind of the patient. Therefore, early diagnosis is an important step, since it allows to find tumors in the early stage of the disease, and thus facilitate the treatment. Compounds derived from benzothiazole belong to a class of molecules that have been studied to increase the selectivity of antitumor agents. Thus, the objective of this research was to study the application of platinum and technetium complexes of 2- (4'-aminophenyl) benzothiazole derivative in the cancer diagnosis, in order to propose these complexes as potential compounds for diagnosis of initial stage. This study was divided into two parts. In the first, the Tc complex was studied as a potential contrast agent in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This part of the study was carried out by evaluating the influence of the technetium nucleus on water hydrogens considering the EPR parameters, which were performed using DFT methods. On the other hand, the platinum complex was studied as a probe in biological systems, in which the platinum chemical shift was evaluated through DFT methods in different environments (vacuum, implicit solvent and inside P13K enzyme active site). As a result, for technetium, the analyzed parameters approximated to the gadolinium values reported in the literature. For the platinum complexes, the chemical shift varied in different environments, as expected. Thus, both complexes present potential application in the early diagnosis of breast cancer. In addition, both metals are widely used in medicine, which facilitates their application in diagnostic techniques.