Cisplatin and platinum drugs at the molecular level (Review)

Over twenty years of intensive work toward improvement of cisplatin, and with hundreds of platinum drugs tested, has resulted in the introduction of the widely used carboplatin and of oxaliplatin used only for a very narrow spectrum of cancers. A number of interesting platinum compounds including the orally administered platinum drug JM216, nedaplatin, the sterically hindered platinum(II) complex ZD0473, the trinuclear platinum complex BBR3464, and the liposomal forms Lipoplatin and SPI-77 are under clinical evaluation. This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms of platinum compounds for DNA damage, DNA repair and induction of apoptosis via activation or modulation of signaling pathways and explores the…