| Резюме: |
Gallium (III) does not occur naturally and has no known functions in the human body, therefore it is called “abiogenic”. However, it has a therapeutic effect when applied to patients suffering from specific tumors or bacterial infections. Recently, many agents based on the Ga3+ effect have entered different phases of clinical trials. Gallium has a curative effect in two main directions – in anticancer and antibacterial therapies, which unite due to the “hunger” for iron of the fast proliferating malignant and bacterial cells. The cations Ga3+ and Fe3+ share a few physio-chemical characteristics, but they differ in their ability to participate in redox-reactions under physiological conditions. Iron easily alternates between the II and III oxidation states, whereas gallium has an extremely untypical oxidation state of I. The mechanisms of gallium’s action known in the literature are based mainly on experimental procedures and indicate the most probable points where gallium can exert its curative effect by affecting the iron homeostasis. Still, many questions arise that can be answered by the tools of theoretical chemistry. The current dissertation studies in deep details the mechanism of the therapeutic action of gallium (III).
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