Ruthenium polypyridyl complex-containing bioconjugates

In the last decades, the number of articles describing the synthesis, characterization and applications of ruthenium polypyridyl complexes has significantly increased. One of the reasons is their tuneable, outstanding luminescent properties. However, ruthenium polypyridyl complexes usually have no intrinsic selectivity towards cancer cells, making them impractical, for example, in certain biological applications. To overcome this drawback, these complexes have been conjugated to biomolecules. In this review, we describe the different ruthenium polypyridyl complex-containing bioconjugates reported so far and their applications as, for example, anticancer drug candidates, sensors or biocatalysts. However, we are not reviewing ruthenium-containing nucleotides and DNA conjugates since these topics were recently reported. The multiple ways of attaching the biomolecules (i.e., peptides, antibodies, carbohydrates, lipids and vitamins) to the ruthenium core are also summarized.