Two New Eu(III)-Based Coordination Polymer Nanoparticles Constructed from the V-Shaped Carboxylic Linkers: Synthesis, Crystal Structures and Anti-oral Cancer Studies

Abstract

Nowadays, great attention has been focused on the development of nanomedicine for their various advantageous properties. In this work, two new mixed ligand coordination polymers [Eu2(PDDA)2(ox)(phen)2](DMA)2 (1, H2ox = oxalic acid, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, H2PDDA is in short of 4,4′-(pyridine-2,6-diyl)dibenzoic acid) and [Eu2(bpda)3(phen)2(H2O)2](H2O)3 (2, H2bpda is in short of 1,1′-biphenyl-3,3′-dicarboxylic acid) have been prepared by an one pot reaction of Eu(NO3)3·6H2O with two newly designed bicarboxylic acid ligands, which demonstrate interesting structural diversity depending on the assistant ligands used. Complex 1 is a three-dimensional pillar-layered network showing a two-fold interpenetrated alpha-Po primitive cubic type 6-connected net, while complex 2 reveals a 2D layered network with a sql/Shubnikov tetragonal topology. Furthermore, both complexes have been successfully downsized to nanoscale morphology to study their anticancer activities against the human tongue squamous cell lines CAL27 via the MTT assay, which reveals that the anticancer activities of the both complexes are greatly enhanced by miniaturizing to nanoparticles.