Cytotoxic activity against a series of tumour cell lines of dimethyltin dichloride complexes with various donor ligands.

Several dimethyltin dichloride complexes of the general formula Me2SnCl2.L, where L = 8-hydroxy quinoline (L1), 8-hydroxy quinoline-N-oxide (L2),2,6-diaminopyridine (L3), 3-amino aniline (L4), cyclohexyl amine (L5), (1R, 2R)-1,2-cyclohexane diamine (L6), 3,5-dimethylpyrazole (L7), harmaline (L8) and harmine (L9), have been prepared and characterized physicochemically and spectroscopically. It was found that tin coordinated with the active site of these ligands to give complexes with penta-coordinated tin or, to some extent, hexa-coordinated tin. The cytotoxic activities of these complexes have been studied against Hep-2, HeLa, L20B and RD lines using the MTT-colorimetric assay. These activities were compared with those of the three reference standards, cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin. Some of these complexes exhibited a range of significant activities against the cell lines used, whereas no cytotoxic activities were exhibited by the rest of these complexes. The significance of these results is given and discussed.