Solvent Effect on the Reactivity of cis-Platinum (II) Complexes: A Density Functional Approach

Abstract

The structure and chemical reactivity of some selected cis-platinum(II) complexes, including clinically used drug molecules, cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Calculated geometries of the complexes are in agreement with their available X-ray data. The global and local reactivity descriptors, such as hardness, chemical potential, electrophilicity index, Fukui function, and local philicity are calculated to investigate the usefulness of these descriptors for understanding the reactive nature and reactive sites of the complexes. Inclusion of solvent effect shows that both global and local descriptors change the trend of reactivity with respect to their trend in the gas phase. The stability of the complexes increases with the inclusion of water molecules. Simple regression analysis is applied to build up a quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model based on DFT derived electrophilicity index for the Pt(II) complexes against A2780 human ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line to establish the importance of the descriptor in predicting cytotoxicity.