Structures and antitumor activities of planar chiral cyclopalladated ferrocene derivatives

Abstract

Bis(μ-acetato)-bridged planar chiral cyclopalladated products have been obtained by asymmetric cyclopalladation of the corresponding chiral ferrocenylimines with palladium(II) acetate and sodium acetate in methanol at room temperature. Two diastereomers were isolated in enantiomerically pure form and their absolute configurations have been determined by single-crystal X-ray analysis. It was found that enantiomerically pure cyclopalladated ferrocene displayed the excellent inhibition to two human breast carcinoma cell lines, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 and could have good application prospect in pharmaceutical use.