Self-Repairing Metallosupramolecular Soft Flexible Scaffolds with Different Gel-Immobilized Media: Study of Rheo-Reversibile Systems toward Cytochrome c and Bcl2 Protein-Mediated Apoptotic Cascades in Cancer Cells.

n-Pyrotartaric acid (PTA)-based three distinct metallogels of Co(II) and Zn(II)-sources are synthesized with polar aprotic solvent media like N,N'-dimethylformamide (DMF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The mechanical characteristics of synthesized metallogels (i.e., Co-PTA-DMF, Zn-PTA-DMF, and Zn-PTA-DMSO) are rheologically examined through frequency sweep, strain sweep, time sweep, and creep-recovery tests. These metallogels are found to show excellent auto-healing and load-bearing aptitudes. Microstructural investigations are executed through field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) to expose metal-source and solvent-directed morphological patterns for these three different metallogels. The stability of synthesized metallogels of Co(II) and Zn(II) metal salts with versatile polar aprotic solvent media is experimentally investigated through stimuli-responsiveness studies. The influences of diverse chemical stimuli such as acid and base on different metallogels are thoroughly captured through FESEM morphological investigations. The involvement of versatile noncovalent interactions to build these soft metallogel networks is opened via analyzing FT-IR and ESI-mass studies. The anticancer potential of these synthesized metallogels is inspected against a cancer cell line of HepG2. All of the metallogels effectively exhibited remarkable anticancer properties. Among these three metallogels, the Zn-PTA-DMF offered a prominent reduction of the cancer cell line of HepG2 and also has an efficiency to inhibit proliferation and expedite the mechanism of cellular death. By enhancing the cytotoxic effect, the Zn-PTA-DMF metallogel offered growth inhibition of cell lines.