After a general introduction on bioinorganic chemistry, some of its history and of its current challenges [1], the talk will focus on the design of metal-based catalytic antioxidants.
Metal complexes are increasingly used for biological applications [2]. Cell penetration, cell distribution and speciation of the metal complexes in biological environment are important to their bio-activity. Because of the nature of biological media (high viscosity, molecular overcrowding, compartmented environment, or high content in Lewis bases and metal ions), their speciation (or nature) and activity can be impacted by cellular surroundings. It is therefore key to study metal complexes meant for therapeutic purposes directly in cells or biological environment and correlate bioactivity with information on intracellular distribution and speciation [1, 3].
The conference will describe a bio-inspired approach [4] for the design of catalytic antioxidants mimicking antioxidant enzymes, getting inspiration from superoxide dismutase [5–7] or catalase [8]. We will present how they can be studied directly in cells. These cellular approaches encompass evaluation of the bioactivity [5, 9, 10], imaging [5, 6], analyses of their speciation [10, 11], and evaluation of the cellular redox state by a redoxomic approach [12]. Two applications will be delineated more specifically: (a) their usage of the antioxidants as anti-inflammatory agents in a cellular model in link with inflammatory bowel diseases using bacteria for delivery in cells and in vivo [13]; (b) their usage to mitigate the side effects of Pt-based drugs and neuropathy effects [14].