Binuclear meta‐xylyl‐linked Ag(I)‐N‐heterocyclic carbene complexes of N‐alkyl/aryl‐alkyl‐substituted bis‐benzimidazolium salts: synthesis,crystal structures and in vitro anticancer studies

Salts of meta‐xylyl‐linked N‐ethyl/n‐butyl/benzyl‐substituted bis‐benzimidazolium having hexafluorophosphate counterions have been synthesized. The corresponding binuclear Ag(I)‐N‐heterocyclic carbene complexes were prepared by the reaction of Ag₂O. The N‐heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand precursor 7 and Ag(I)–NHC complexes 10 and 11 have been structurally characterized by single‐crystal X‐ray diffraction technique. All of the reported compounds have been tested for their anticancer activity using human colorectal (HCT 116) cancer cell lines. Sterically varied benzimidazolium salts displayed significant activity against HCT 116 cell line, yielding IC₅₀ values in the range 0.1–19.4 µ m , while Ag(I)–carbene complexes showed exceptionally good activity (0.2–1.3 µ m ) against tested cancer cell lines. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High Pressure Optical Absorption in Cs 2 TCNQ 3 Complexes Grown Under the Influence of Magnetic Field

Crystals of the organic semiconductor Cs 2 TCNQ 3 have been grown under the influence of magnetic field of 5 T and their optical properties have been compared with the crystals grown without magnetic field. The magnetic field effect manifests itself as the enhancement of the intradimer charge transfer band S 1 , which appears at around 1.3 eV in the E//a polarization. The high-pressure optical absorption measurements have shown that the S 1 band of the crystal grown at 5 T contains a new component, which is significantly intensified with increasing pressure up to 1 GPa, but diminishes as pressure increases further up to 4 GPa, and remains constant at higher pressures. This new component is additional to the component of S 1 band which has similar properties to that of the crystals grown without magnetic filed, which continuously grows up to 3 GPa and abruptly broadens out at higher pressures. The new component of S 1 is strongly linked to the ferromagnetism in this substance.