Over the past decade, metal complexes based on N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have
attracted great attention due to their wide and exciting applications in material sciences and
medicinal chemistry. In particular, the gold-based complexes are the focus of research efforts for
the development of new anticancer compounds. Literature data and recent results, obtained by our
research group, reported the design, the synthesis and the good anticancer activity of some silver
and gold complexes with NHC ligands. In particular, some of these complexes were active towards
some breast cancer cell lines. Considering this evidence, here we report some new Au-NHC
complexes prepared in order to improve solubility and biological activity. Among them, the
compounds 1 and 6 showed an interesting anticancer activity towards the breast cancer MDA-MB-
231 and MCF-7 cell lines, respectively. In addition, in vitro and in silico studies demonstrated that
they were able to inhibit the activity of the human topoisomerases I and II and the actin
polymerization reaction. Moreover, a downregulation of vimentin expression and a reduced
translocation of NF-kB into the nucleus was observed. The interference with these vital cell
structures induced breast cancer cells’ death by triggering the extrinsic apoptotic pathway