Half-sandwich organoruthenium and organorhodium complexes of biologically relevant ligands.

This thesis describes some chemistry of [(mes)RuC12]2, [(Cp)RuCl(CO)2] and [(Cp*)RhCl2]2 complexes and in particular, the reactions with biologically relevant ligands. Chapter one introduces the general chemistry of arene-ruthenium and pentamethylcyclopentadienyl-rhodium from early work described by Winkhaus and Singer in the preparation of half-sandwich arene-rathenium complex [(C6H6)RuCl2(PPh3)] and the contributions on the reactions of [(Cp*)RhCl2]2 reported by Maitlis and co-workers. The second half of the introduction discusses the introduction and uses of inorganic complexes as anti-tumour agents. Chapter two describes the reactions of amino acids with potentially coordinating side chains with [(mes)RuCl2]2 and the characterisation of the amino acidate complexes formed. The crystal structure of the complex [(mes)RuCl(phgly)] has been determined and a high temperature 1H n.m.r. spectrum has been obtained. Chapter three describes the preparation and characterisation of a number of pyranato and pyridinato complexes of arene-ruthenium and Cp*-rhodium. A low temperature 1H n.m.r. spectrum was obtained for the complex [(Cp*)RhCl(etmalt)] and conductivity experiments were obtained which indicate that the complexes exist in water as a mixture of water or chloride co-ordinated species. Chapter four describes the reactions of a number of half-sandwich complexes of ruthenium and rhodium with nucleobases to determine the binding site(s) involved in co-ordination. A set of competition reactions were undertaken to determine any preference of the complex [(mes)RuCl(phgly)] for the various nucleobases. We have found that for this ruthenium complex, guanosine forms the most stable complexes with thymidine and uridine forming the least stable.