Peter I. Ejidike
University of Fort Hare, South Africa
Title: In vitro Antioxidant and Anticancer Studies of Heterocyclic Schiff base Ruthenium (III) complexes: Synthesis and Characterization
Biography
Biography: Peter I. Ejidike
Abstract
The strategic design of biologically active molecules is a vigorous task and the variables affecting biological activity are diverse. Metal based antioxidants have gained recent attention for their ability to protect living organisms and cells from damage caused by oxidative stress or scavenge free radicals. In view of the growing interest in the development of new therapeutic agents and DNA probes for disease defence, we present ruthenium(III) complexes of three tetradentate Schiff bases with a N2O2 donor atoms set and formulated as: [RuCl(LA)(H2O)]; [RuCl(LB)(H2O)]; [RuCl(LC)(H2O)]. The spectra data showed that the ligands coordinate Ru ion through the azomethine nitrogen and enolic oxygen atoms. Electronic spectral measurements indicated an octahedral geometry for all the complexes. The antioxidant activities of the complexes were investigated through scavenging activity on DPPH and ABTS radicals. The obtained IC50 value of the DPPH activity for the [RuCl(LB)(H2O)] complex (IC50 = 1.58±0.50 µM) was higher than other Ru(III) compounds. The study revealed that the Ru(III) complexes exhibited strong scavenging activities against DPPH and moderate ABTS radicals. In addition, the anticancer studies of the complexes were also tested against human renal cancer cell (TK10), human melanoma cancer cell (UACC62) and human breast cancer cell (MCF7) using the SRB assay with moderate anticancer activity against the tested cell lines. [RuCl(LB)(H2O)] chelates exhibited higher bioactivities than [RuCl(LA)(H2O)] and [RuCl(LC)(H2O)] complexes. Nevertheless, antioxidant activities of the complexes showed moderate to strong free radical inhibitors for treating pathological damage associated with radical-generation leading to aging, degenerative diseases and cancer.