Arene ruthenium cages: Boxes full of surprises

A review. Self-assembly of polypyridyl ligands with dinuclear arene Ru building blocks bridged by chlorido, oxalato or benzoquinonato ligands has allowed the construction of a wide range of cationic metalla complexes possessing different architectures and functionalities: (i) metalla-rectangles showing host-guest possibilities and allowing intramol. template-controlled photochem. [2 + 2] dimerization reactions; (ii) metalla-prisms allowing encapsulation of mols. and giving rise to potential drug delivery systems; (iii) metalla-boxes that can be used to stabilize the formation of G-quadruplex DNA. This microreview covers the synthetic and structural aspects of these metalla complexes, as well as their most promising applications, with a particular focus on their potential biol. applications. (© Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009). [on SciFinder(R)]