Ruthenium(III) complexes with modified nucleobases: N-Substituted adenines

New chlorido-dimethylsulfoxide-ruthenium(III) complexes with different N⁶-substituted adenines have been prepared and characterized. Three ruthenium complexes have been structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction crystallography: [Ru^IIICl₄(DMSO)[H-(N⁶-pentyladenine)]] (1), [Ru^IIICl₄(DMSO)[H-(N⁶-hexyladenine)]] (2) and [Ru^IIICl₄(DMSO)[H-(N⁶,N⁶-dibutyladenine)]] (3). In all cases ruthenium ion show octahedral geometry coordinated to four chlorido ligands and one S coordinated sulfoxide (DMSO). The coordination sphere is completed by an adenine moiety coordinated to Ru(III) via N(9) and protonated at N(3). Other similar complexes have been obtained with N⁶-propyladenine, [Ru^IIICl₄(DMSO)[H-(N⁶-propyladenine)]] · 0.5EtOH (4) and N⁶-benzylaminopurine (BAP) [Ru^IIICl₄(DMSO)[H-(BAP)]] · 0.5H₂O (5) which have been spectroscopically characterized. Otherwise, in different reaction conditions, we have obtained an out sphere complex of Ru(II), [H-(BAP)][Ru^IICl₃(DMSO)₃] (6), with identical complex unit than the structurally solved [H-(creat)][Ru^IICl₃(DMSO)₃] (7) which was included for comparison purposes. Preliminary electrophoretic mobility and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies of the interaction between Ru(III) compounds and plasmidic DNA pBR322 have been performed. These results show different morphological changes in plasmidic DNA forms.