Vanadium: History, chemistry, interactions with α-amino acids and potential therapeutic applications.

In the last 30 years, since the discovery that vanadium is a cofactor found in certain enzymes of tunicates and possibly in mammals, different vanadium-based drugs have been developed targeting to treat different pathologies. So far, the in vitro studies of the insulin mimetic, antitumor and antiparasitic activity of certain compounds of vanadium have resulted in a great boom of its inorganic and bioinorganic chemistry. Chemical speciation studies of vanadium with amino acids under controlled conditions or, even in blood plasma, are essential for the understanding of the biotransformation of e.g. vanadium antidiabetic complexes at the physiological level, providing clues of their mechanism of action. The present article carries out a bibliographical research emphaticizing the chemical speciation of the vanadium with different amino acids and reviewing also some other important aspects such as its chemistry and therapeutical applications of several vanadium complexes.

Vanadium complexes with polypyridyl ligands: Speciation, structure and potential medicinal activity.

This review focuses on the interaction between the essential element­vanadium with 1,10-phenanthroline and polypyridyl ligands. It starts with a summary of the prior work on speciation studies for the binary systems vanadium-phenanthroline alongside several hydrolytic studies of the metal ion. It also includes a complete overview on the different X-ray structures known to date with discussions on the potential cytotoxic activity of several vanadium-polypyridyl complexes.

Complejos de vanadio (III) con glutatión en disolución acuosa / Vanadium (III) complexes with glutathione in aqueous solution

Se presentan los resultados del estudio de los complejos de vanadio(III) con glutatión (GSH, H3L) a 25 °C y en KCl3,0 M mediante medidas de fuerzas electromotrices, emf(H). El análisis de los datos mediante el programa de mínimos cuadrados generalizados LETAGROP indica la formación de cantidades significativas de los complejos VH4l4+, VH3L3+, V(H3L)23+ yv(L)(3L)2+, cuyas constantes de estabilidad fueron determinadas.

The formation of the vanadium(III) complexes with glutathione (GSH, H3L) was studied in 3.0 M KCl at 25 °C by means of electromotive forces measurements, emf (H). The analysis of the potentiometric data by means of the least-squares program LETAGROP indicates the formation of significant quantities of the complexes VH4l4+, VH3L3+, V(H3L)23+ yv(L)(3L)2+, whose stability constants were determined.