Promoted by RuCl 3 .3H 2 O coordination in the mixed solvent DMF/H 2 O, diverse in situ S-S bond reactions such as S-S bond scission and S-oxidation occurred in the disulfide ligand of 2,2'-dithiodibenzoic acid acid (dtdb) to yield the new sulfinato-benzoate ligand (sb). The X-ray analysis of complexes of [Ru(phen) 2 (sb)] (1) and [Ru(bipy) 2 (sb).H 2 O] (2) revealed that in both complexes, the ruthenium ion was found to be in an octahedral geometry, coordinating to the sulfur atom, rather than the oxygen of sulfinate. The complexes were found to be active against the bacterial strains tested with MIC ranging from 14.3-261 µM. In addition, the metal complexes present strong DNA binding affinities constants in the major or minor grooves at the order of magnitude 10 3 -10 5 M −1 . The antioxidant activities of the ligand and its metal complexes were investigated through scavenging effects for DPPH in vitro, indicating that the compounds show stronger antioxidant activities than some standard antioxidants, such as ascorbic and vitamin C.Keywords: 2,2'-dithiodibenzoic acid, S-oxidation, ruthenium, bacterial strains, DNA binding, antioxidantIn situ metal/disulfide reactions under slow diffusion conditions undergo S-S mediated bond reactions, such as S-oxidation, S-S and C-S bond scission. This is a very important research field in coordination chemistry as it leads to structurally novel coordination architectures with interesting physical properties [1][2][3]. In this respect, the use of organosulfur compounds containing carboxylate groups can be attractive due to their flexibility and versatile coordinating modes of both sulfur and oxygen atoms and, generating unprecedented coordination frameworkswhich can act as linkers between inorganic moieties [4][5][6][7][8]. Up to now, a series of transition metal complexes have been found to react with 2,2'-dithiodibenzoic acid (dtdb), giving rise to 1D chains, 2D sheets or 3D network whereby the carboxylate act as monodentate or bidentate donor with or without cleavage of the S-S bond [9]. Recently, we have isolated new copper(II) coordination polymers, whereby dtdb underwent simultaneous S-S and C-S scission under slow diffusion conditions, leading to the formation of 1D coordination polymers [10]. In the presence of 1,10 phenanthroline (phen) and 2,2'bipyridine (bipy), in addition to extrusion of the sulfur atom, the oxidation of sulfur to a sulfate ion was observed. These observations, coupled with the fact that there are no reports of ruthenium complexes derived from dtdb, stimulated our interest to investigate its coordination behavior. Hence, in this work we report for the first time new coordination polymers obtained from RuCl 3 .3H 2 O and dtdb in the presence of phen and bipy, which exhibit sulfinato-benzoate units. The fluorescent, antioxidant and antibacterial properties of the complexes have also been studied, since ruthenium complexes is considered as an attractive alternative to platinum in anticancer drug design and biological applications [11][12][13]...