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Publisher's statement:"NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Inorganica Chimica Acta .Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Inorganica Chimica Acta, Vol. (3, [9]aneN 3 = 1,4,7-triazacyclononane), is reported along with the X-ray crystal structure of 1. We investigated whether these complexes have photochemical properties which might make them suitable for use as pro-drugs in photochemotherapy. Complexes 1 and 2 underwent rapid (minutes) aquation with dissociation of the pyridine ligand in aqueous solution when irradiated with blue light (λ = 420 or 467 nm). The photodecompostion of 3 was much slower. All complexes readily formed adducts with 9-ethylguanine (9-EtG) when this model nucleobase was present in the photolysis solution. Similarly, complex 1 formed adducts with the tripeptide glutathione (GSH), but only when photoactivated. HPLC-MS studies of 1 showed that irradiation promoted rapid formation of 1:1 (major) and 1:2 (minor) adducts of the oligonucleotide d(ATACATGCTACATA) with the fragment {Ru([9]aneS 3 )(bpy)} 2+ . Density functional theory (DFT) calculations and time-dependent DFT reproduced the major features of the absorption spectra and suggested that the lowest-lying triplet state with 3 MLCT character, which is readily accessible via intersystem crossing, might be responsible for the 2 observed dissociative behaviour of the excited states. These complexes are promising for further study as potential photochemotherapeutic agents.