Flavonol-ruthenium complexes as antioxidant and anticancer agents.

Flavonol-metal complexes can enhance the biological activity of flavonols. Inspired by the potential of ruthenium-based drugs in pharmaceutical applications, seven flavonol-Ru (II) complexes were synthesized to evaluate their biological activities. Among these compounds, compounds 8, 11, and 12 showed potent antioxidant activities. Compound 12 exhibited superior anti-inflammatory activity to natural quercetin, which served as a positive control. This study is the first to report the free radical scavenging abilities and antioxidant activity of flavonol-Ru (II) complexes. Furthermore, compound 12 demonstrated comparable efficacy to 5-FU against human non-small-cell lung cancer cells (A549). These results strongly support the potential of flavonol-Ru (II) agents.

Synthesis of selenophene-containing flavonols and 2-styrylchromones: Evaluation of their activities compared with selenophene-containing chalcones as potential anticancer agents.

Previously, we documented the synthesis and assessed the biological effects of chalcones containing selenium against HT-29 human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells, demonstrating their significant potential. As research on selenium-containing flavonoids remains limited, this article outlines our design and synthesis of three selenium-based flavonols and three 2-styrylchromones. We conducted evaluations of these compounds to determine their impact on human lung cancer cells (A549, H1975, CL1-0, and CL1-5) and their influence on normal lung fibroblast MRC5 cells. Additionally, we included selenium-based chalcones in our testing for comparative purposes. Our findings highlight that the simplest compound, designated as compound 1, exhibited the most promising performance among the tested molecules.