History
The compound cis-PtCl2(NH3)2 was first described by M. Peyrone in 1845, and known for a long time as Peyrone's salt. The structure was deduced by Alfred Werner in 1893. In 1965, Barnett Rosenberg, van Camp et al. of Michigan State University discovered that electrolysis of platinum electrodes generated a soluble platinum complex which inhibited binary fission in Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria. Although bacterial cell growth continued, cell division was arrested, the bacteria growing as filaments up to 300 times their normal length. The octahedral Pt(IV) complex cis PtCl4(NH3)2, but not the trans isomer, was found to be effective at forcing filamentous growth of E. coli cells. The square planar Pt(II) complex, cis PtCl2(NH3)2 turned out to be even more effective at forcing filamentous growth. This finding led to the observation that cis PtCl2(NH3)2 was indeed highly effective at regressing the mass of sarcomas in rats. Confirmation of this discovery, and extension of testing to other tumour cell lines launched the medicinal applications of cisplatin. Cisplatin was approved for use in testicular and ovarian cancers by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on December 19, 1978.
Read more about this topic: Cisplatin
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