Reactions of N-[N',N'-diethylamino(thiocarbonyl)]benzimidoyl chloride with 4,4-dialkylthiosemicarbazides give a novel class of thiosemicarbazides/thiosemicarbazones, H(2)L, which causes a remarkable reduction of cell growth in in vitro experiments. These strong antiproliferative effects are also observed for oxorhenium(V) complexes of the general composition [ReOCl(L)], which are formed by reactions of the potentially tridentate ligands with (NBu(4))[ReOCl(4)]. A systematic substitution of the alkyl groups in the thiosemicarbazone building blocks of the ligands do not significantly influence the biological activity of the metal complexes, while the replacement of the chloro ligand by a PPh(3) ligand (by the replacement of the oxo unit by a nitrido ligand) completely terminated the cytotoxicity of the metal complexes.

Similar reactions of 2,6-dipicolinoylbis(N,N-diethylthiourea) (H2L(a)) with: (i) Ni(NO3)2·6H2O, (ii) a mixture of Ni(NO3)2·6H2O and AgNO3, (iii) a mixture of Ni(OAc)2·4H2O and PrCl3·7H2O and (iv) a mixture of Ni(OAc)2·4H2O and BaCl2·2H2O give the binuclear complex [Ni2(L(a))2(MeOH)(H2O)], the polymeric compound [NiAg2(L(a))2]∞, and the heterobimetallic complexes [Ni2Pr(L(a))2(OAc)3] and [Ni2Ba(L(a))3], respectively. The obtained assemblies can be used for the build up of supramolecular polymers by means of weak and medium intermolecular interactions. Two prototype examples of such compounds, which are derived from the trinuclear complexes of the types [MLn(III)(L)2(OAc)3] and [MBa(L)3], are described with the compounds {[CuDy(III)(L(a))2(p-O2C-C6H4-CO2)(MeOH)4]Cl}∞ and [MnBa(MeOH)(L(b))3]∞, H2L(b) = 2,6-dipicolinoylbis(N,N-morpholinoylthiourea).