Pincer Complexes Derived from Tridentate Schiff Bases for Their Use as Antimicrobial Metallopharmaceuticals

Within the current challenges in medicinal chemistry, the development of new and better therapeutic agents effective against infectious diseases produced by bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites stands out. With chemotherapy as one of the main strategies against these diseases focusing on the administration of organic and inorganic drugs, the latter is generally based on the synergistic effect produced by the formation of metal complexes with biologically active organic compounds. In this sense, Schiff bases (SBs) represent and ideal ligand scaffold since they have demonstrated a broad spectrum of antitumor, antiviral, antimicrobial, and anti-inflammatory activities, among others. In addition, SBs are synthesized in an easy manner from one-step condensation reactions, being thus suitable for facile structural modifications, having the imine group as a coordination point found in most of their metal complexes, and promoting chelation when other donor atoms are three, four, or five bonds apart. However, despite the wide variety of metal complexes found in the literature using this type of ligands, only a handful of them include on their structures tridentate SBs ligands and their biological evaluation has been explored. Hence, this review summarizes the most important antimicrobial activity results reported this far for pincer-type complexes (main group and d-block) derived from SBs tridentate ligands.

Correlating the charge transfer efficiency of metallic sulfa-isatins to design efficient NLO materials with better drug designs

The present study presents synthesis, characterization and first principle studies on metal chelates, (1-12), of sulfonamide-isatin reacted ligands (S¹-S³). All the products were evaluated by various physical and spectral (UV, IR, NMR, MS) means. The octahedral geometry for Co⁺², Ni⁺² and Zn⁺², while square planner geometry for Cu⁺² chelates were confirmed by their spectroscopic and magnetic data. Their physical chemistry investigation show the ability of aromatic rings to stabilize sulfonamide rings across NH-π interactions at their optimized geometries. The nonlinear optical response for all the compounds disclosed that the z-axis has the most contributions. An efficient electron injection and hole studies for Au and Al electrodes having the energies of - 0.1-3.1 and 0.0-11.8 eV respectively were noted. Their bioactive character was shown by global reactivity calculated from FMO energy gaps. The enzyme inhibitory results were found to be 45-61% and IC₅₀ = 102-122 µL, for compound (4), (10), (8), (5) and (12) against the amylase, protease, acetylcholinesterase (AChE), and butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) respectively The antibacterial findings showed significant action having 11-17 mm for (2), (7) and (10) for bacterial species, Escherichia coli and Micrococcus luteus. The DPPH and ferric reducing power assay was used to evaluate the antioxidant capacity with 49.0 ± 0.09-66.2 ± 0.08% and IC₅₀ = 102.3-122.4 µL range. In comparison to ligands, the results showed that all metal chelates had higher bioactivity. The chelation was the primary cause of their increased bioactivity. These findings suggested that such metal-based compounds might be used as antimicrobial, and antioxidant options in future to cope drug resistance.

Facile construction of lamellar-like phosphorus-based triazole-zinc complex for high-performance epoxy resins

Epoxy resins (EP) possessing superior flame retardancy, mechanical properties and glass transition temperature are urgently needed to meet the ever-increasing requirement of high performance for the practical application of EP. Herein, lamellar-like phosphorus-based triazole-zinc complex (Zn-PT) was firstly constructed through coordination reaction in a facile condition to address the above issue. The results revealed that Zn-PT was well dispersed in epoxy matrix, and with 3 wt% Zn-PT, the tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of epoxy composites were remarkably increased from 71, 112 and 2982 MPa of neat epoxy resin (EP) to 80, 162 and 3482 MPa respectively. The glass transition temperature was higher than EP. Besides, the limiting oxygen index (LOI) increased to 28.3%, and UL-94V-1 level was available. Meanwhile, the cone calorimeter test (CCT) results showed that epoxy composites displayed less heat release and smoke production. Generally, this work provides a feasible strategy to prepare high-performance epoxy composites, which has the potential to satisfy the requirement of epoxy in the practical application.

Recent developments of metal-based compounds against fungal pathogens

This review provides insight into the rapidly expanding field of metal-based antifungal agents. In recent decades, the antibacterial resistance crisis has caused reflection on many aspects of public health where weaknesses in our medicinal arsenal may potentially be present - including in the treatment of fungal infections, particularly in the immunocompromised and those with underlying health conditions where mortality rates can exceed 50%. Combination of organic moieties with known antifungal properties and metal ions can lead to increased bioavailability, uptake and efficacy. Development of such organometallic drugs may alleviate pressure on existing antifungal medications. Prodigious antimicrobial moieties such as azoles, Schiff bases, thiosemicarbazones and others reported herein lend themselves easily to the coordination of a host of metal ions, which can vastly improve the biocidal activity of the parent ligand, thereby extending the library of antifungal drugs available to medical professionals for treatment of an increasing incidence of fungal infections. Overall, this review shows the impressive but somewhat unexploited potential of metal-based compounds to treat fungal infections.

A review: Pharmacological aspects of metal based 1,2,4-triazole derived Schiff bases

Clinical reports have highlighted the radical increase of antibiotic resistance. As a result, multidrug resistance has emerged as a serious threat to human health. Many organic compounds commonly used as drugs in the past, no longer have pure organic mode of action rather need bio-transformation or more activation. Bulk of research has shown that they need trace amount of metal ions incorporated within the chemistry of bioactive molecules for enhancement of their potentiality to fight aggressively against resistance. The deficiency of some metal ions can also be responsible for many diseases like growth retardation, pernicious anemia and heart diseases in infants. To overcome these problems, there is a need to introduce novel strategies which have new mechanism of action along with significant spectrum of biological activity, enhanced safety and efficacy. Bioinorganic compounds have played imperative role in developing the new strategy in the form of "Metal Based Drugs". In current years there have been momentous rise of interest in the application of metal based Schiff base compounds to treat various diseases which are difficult to be treated with conventional methodologies. The unique properties of metal chelates acting as an intermediate between conventional organic and inorganic compounds provided innovative opportunities in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry. In this review, we have exclusively focused on the search of metal based 1,2,4-triazole derived Schiff base compounds (synthesized, reported and reviewed in the past ten years) that possess various biological activities such as antifungal, antibacterial, antioxidant, antidiabetic, anthelmintic, anticancer, antiproliferative, cytotoxic and DNA-intercalation activity.

Development of Antibacterial and Antifungal Triazole Chromium(III) and Cobalt(II) Complexes: Synthesis and Biological Activity Evaluations

In this work, six complexes (2⁻7) of Cr(III) and Co(II) transition metals with triazole ligands were synthesized and characterized. In addition, a new ligand, 3,5-bis(1,2,4-triazol-1-ylmethyl)toluene (1), was synthesized and full characterized. The complexes were obtained as air-stable solids and characterized by melting point, electrical conductivity, thermogravimetric analysis, and Raman, infrared and ultraviolet/visible spectroscopy. The analyses and spectral data showed that complexes 3⁻7 had 1:1 (M:L) stoichiometries and octahedral geometries, while 2 had a 1:2 (M:L) ratio, which was supported by DFT calculations. The complexes and their respective ligands were evaluated against bacterial and fungal strains with clinical relevance. All the complexes showed higher antibacterial and antifungal activities than the free ligands. The complexes were more active against fungi than against bacteria. The activities of the chromium complexes against Candida tropicalis are of great interest, as they showed minimum inhibitory concentration 50 (MIC₅₀) values between 7.8 and 15.6 μg mL^-1. Complexes 5 and 6 showed little effect on Vero cells, indicating that they are not cytotoxic. These results can provide an important platform for the design of new compounds with antibacterial and antifungal activities.