Orthopalladated tetralone oxime compounds bearing tertiary phosphines: Synthesis, structure, biological and in silico studies

The halido-α-bridge cleavage reactions between [Pd(C2,N-tetrox)(μ-Cl)]2 precursor (tetrox = E-α-tetralone oxime) with phosphines, in 1:2 molar ratio, have afforded mononuclear cyclopalladated compounds of the type [PdCl(C2,N-tetrox)(L)] {L = triphenylphosphine (1); tris(4-methylphenyl)phosphine (2); tris(4-fluorophenyl)phosphine (3) and tris(4-methoxyphenyl)phosphine (4)}. The compounds have been characterized by elemental analyses, infrared (FT-IR) and 1H, 13C{1H} and 31P{1H}-NMR spectroscopies. The molecular structure of 3 has been determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction (SC-XRD) and the Hirshfeld Surface calculation (HS) has been performed. The antiproliferative activity of compounds 1–4 has been evaluated against breast (MCF-7) and lung (A549) human cancer cells, and human lung fibroblast (MRC-5). All cyclopalladated compounds have been more active than cisplatin against MCF-7 cells, with IC50 values ranging from 19 to 26 µM. Binding experiments involving compound 3 with ct-DNA and human serum albumin (HSA) have been carried out using spectroscopic techniques. The interaction between compound 3 and HSA has been studied by means of molecular docking.