Pharmacologically significant complexes of Mn(II), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) of novel Schiff base ligand, (E)-N-(furan-2-yl methylene) quinolin-8-amine: Synthesis, spectral, XRD, SEM, antimicrobial, antioxidant and in vitro cytotoxic studies

•Novel metal complexes derived from (E)-N-(furan-2-yl methylene) quinolin-8-amine.•Characterization by spectroscopic techniques.•XRD and SEM images.•Comparative in-vitro antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxic activities of ligand and metal complexes.•Complex [MnL2(H2O)2]Cl2 was found to be most promising anticancer candidate against cancer cell lines.

A novel series of metal complexes of the types, [ML2(H2O)2]Cl2 and [ML2]Cl2 [M = Mn(II), 1; Co(II), 2; Ni(II), 3; Cu(II), 4; and Zn(II), 5] were synthesized by the interaction of ligand, L (E)-N-(furan-2-yl methylene) quinolin-8-amine, derived from the condensation of 2-furaldehyde and 8-aminoquinoline. The synthesized ligand and its metal complexes were characterized on the basis of results obtained from elemental analysis, ESI-MS, XRD, SEM, TGA/DTA, FT-IR, UV-Vis, magnetic moment and 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopic studies. EPR parameters were recorded in case of complex 4. The comparative in-vitro antimicrobial activities against various pathogens with reference to known antibiotics and antioxidant activity against standard control at variable concentrations revealed that the metal complexes show enhanced antimicrobial and free radical scavenging activities in general as compared to free ligand. However, the complexes 1 and 5 have shown best antioxidant activity among all the metal complexes. Furthermore, comparative in-vitro antiproliferative activity on ligand and its metal chelates performed on MDA-MB-231 (breast carcinoma), KCL22 (blood lymphoid carcinoma), HeLa (cervical carcinoma) cell lines and normal cells (PBMC) revealed that metal chelates show moderate to good activity as compared to ligand where as complex 1 seems to be the most promising one possessing a broad spectrum of activity against all the selected cancer cell lines with IC50 < 2.10 μM.

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