Synthesis and biological evaluation of water-soluble organogermanium.

Interferon (INF) is an effective drug in treating several human diseases. Ge-132, which is the most common and well-studied organic germanium, has been reported to induce INF-gamma and has undergone clinical trials with promising preclinical results. However, it has been reported that long-term ingestion or high doses of organic Ge-132 causes similar toxic effects as GeO(2) because Ge-132 can be easily contaminated with significant amounts of inorganic germanium during the preparation. In this study, we synthesized the water-soluble organogermanium compound (Ge-OH) without possible contamination with toxic inorganic germanium and showed that Ge-OH is a better INF-gamma inducer than Ge-132 by an animal study.