Thomas Huhn

Titanocene dichloride and budotitane have opened a new chapter in medicinal chemistry of titanium(IV) complexes being novel non-platinum antitumor metallic agents. Numerous efforts have led to the discovery of the diamino bis-phenolato titanium(IV) complexes. Among which, the [ONNO] and [ONON] type ligands namely Salan, Salen and Salalen coordinated titanium(IV) alkox-yl complexes have demonstrated significantly enhanced aqueous stability, their in vitro and in vivo antitumor efficacy, mechanism of action, structure-activity relationships and combined tumor thera-py have been intensively investigated. Replacement of the labile alkoxyls with a second chelator re-sulted in structural rigid titanium(IV) complexes, which showed exceedingly good aqueous stability and potent antitumor activity both in vitro and in vivo. The unique ligand system successfully al-lowed the access of isotopic [45Ti]Titanium(IV) complexes, post-synthetic modification, facile syn-thetic protocols and antitumor congeneric zirconium(IV) and hafnium(IV) complexes. This review presents recent research progress in the field of antitumor group 4 metal complexes stabilized with phenolato ligands; especially their structure-activity relationships are summarized.