Congratulations to our PhD student Ester Giorgi for the recent scientific publication entitled “Mechanistic Evaluations of the Effects of Auranofin Triethylphosphine Replacement with a Trimethylphosphite Moiety” in Inorganic Chemistry. A panel of four gold(I) complexes has been recently synthesized and characterized, taking inspiration from the well-known clinical compound auranofin. The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the strength and stability of the P–Au bond by conducting an extensive investigation on relevant biological models.
Specifically, three different vasopressin peptide analogues and cysteine were employed, and their interactions with the gold complexes were examined using 31P NMR and LC-ESI-MS techniques. Additionally, a DFT computational study was conducted for a better understanding of the theoretical fundamentals underlying the observed differences in comparison to the parent compounds containing triethylphosphine.
This paper can be freely downloaded at: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01280