Abstract
Coordination-driven self-assembly is an effective synthetic tool for the construction of spatially and electronically tunable supramolecular coordination complexes (SCCs), which are useful in various applications. Herein, we report the synthesis of a two-dimensional discrete metalla-rectangle [(
-
-cymene)
Ru
(C
H
O
)
(
)
](CF
SO
)
(
) by the reaction of a dinuclear half-sandwich ruthenium (II) complex [Ru
(
-
-cymene)
(C
H
O
)Cl
] (
) and bis-pyridyl amide linker (
) in the presence of AgO
SCF
. This cationic ruthenium metalla-rectangle (
) has been isolated as its triflate salt and characterized by analytical techniques including elemental analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (
H-NMR), carbon nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (
C-NMR),
H-
H correlation spectroscopy (COSY),
H-
H nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY), diffusion ordered spectroscopy (DOSY), and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS). Significantly, the 2D cationic ruthenium metalla-rectangle showed better anticancer activity towards three different cell lines (A549, Caki-1 and Lovo) as compared with the parent ruthenium complex (
) and the commercially used drug, cisplatin.