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Difference between Cisplatin and Transplatin as Anticancer Drug

Cisplatin is a platinum complex used as an anticancer drug for various types of cancer including testicular cancer, ovarian cancer, head and neck cancer, brain tumor and many more. The trans isomer of cisplatin, also known as transplatin, is not used to treat cancer patients. The reason lies into the process of how platinum based anticancer drugs work.
Cisplatin

Cisplatins attack the target DNAs of the tumor cells and inhibit their repair process and synthesis. It makes crosslinks (interstrand and intrastrand) and produces DNA adduct. There are some theories about transplatin and its function in body. It is said to be more reactive and makes unnecessary complexes before reaching the cell or target DNA.
Transplatin

In comparison between cisplatin and transplatin, transplatin produces much less DNA adduct than cisplatin. But both cisplatin and transplatin are cytotoxic and both should face DNA restriction while attacking.
As in transplatin, the leaving groups, which are the two Cl- ions, are in trans position and obviously can not perform well as leaving group as those two cis Cl- ions in cisplatin. These are the reasons why cisplatin is being used widely as anticancer drug but not transplatin. But scientists are working on transplatin to know more about its functions.
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