Photo-activated CO releasing molecules

Carbon monoxide has been demonstrated to exhibit several beneficial effects on biological targets (anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, anti-apoptotic, anti-oxidative and vasodilatory effects).1 The development of photo-activated CO releasing molecules (photoCORMs) has received considerable attention as a new prodrug approach.2 However, despite the number of photoCORMs reported in the literature, their mechanism of CO release has been little elucidated so far. Herein, we report the synthesis of ruthenium(II)-carbonyl complexes (Figure) functionalized with electron-donating and/or electron-withdrawing bipyridine ligands and investigate the mechanism of CO release (before and after light-activation) using a combination of UV-Vis and FTIR spectroscopy accompanied with a chemometric technique (Multivariate Curve Fitting Analysis).3 The photo-activated CO-release kinetics of the Ru(II)-photoCORMs, as well as the identity of the intermediates and photo-activated products, will be presented. These results have important implications in understanding their chemistry and guiding the design of new photoCORMs.

References
[1] R. Motterlini, L. E. Otterbein, Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 2010. 9, 728-743
[2] U. Schatzschneider, British J. Pharmacol. 2014, 172, 1638-1650
[3] C. Bischof, T. Joshi, A. Dimri, L. Spiccia, U. Schatzschneider, Inorg. Chem. 2013, 52, 9297-9308