Phosphine-copper(I) complexes as anticancer agents: design, synthesis, and physicochemical characterization. Part I

This short overview of the chemistry of copper with phosphine-containing pincer-type ligands demonstrates that (1) a variety of platforms are capable of accommodating nonplanar geometries that allow for Cu(I) binding, (2) Cu (II) binding appears to be virtually incompatible thus far with soft phosphine-based donors, although some exceptions have been established, albeit without true pincer-type binding, and (3) reactivity studies and catalytic applications of Cu complexes with most platforms are still lacking but deemed interesting, particularly also in the context of the growing field of metal-ligand bifunctional bond activation strategies.