title: Using titanium complexes to defeat cancer: the view from the shoulders of titans.
abstract: When the first titanium complex with anticancer activity was identified in the 1970s, it was attractive, based on the presence of the dichloride unit in TiCl2Cp2(Cp = η-C5H5)2, to assume its mode of biological action was closely aligned with cisplatin [cis-PtCl2(NH3)2]. Over the intervening 40 years however a far more complicated picture has arisen indicating multiple cellular mechanisms of cellular action can be triggered by titanium anti-cancer agents. This tutorial review aims to unpick the historical data and provide new researchers, without an explicit cancer biology background, a contemporary interpretation of both older and newer literature and to review the best techniques for attaining the identities of the biologically active titanium species and how these interact with the cancer cellular machinery.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Sciences, MCAST Main Campus, Corradino Hill, Paola, PLA 9032, Malta. melchior.cini@mcast.edu.mt.
authors.forename: Melchior
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7744-7682
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cini
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Centre for Biomolecular Science, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK. tracey.brashaw@nottingham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Tracey D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Bradshaw
authors.affiliation: GSK Carbon Neutral Laboratories for Sustainable Chemistry, University of Nottingham, Jubilee Campus, Nottingham NG7 2TU, UK. simon.woodward@nottingham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8539-6232
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Woodward
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D056831:Coordination Complexes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D006801:Humans; D015394:Molecular Structure; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship; D014025:Titanium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D056831:Coordination Complexes; D014025:Titanium