Bioactive Heterometallic CuII-ZnII Complexes with Potential Biomedical Applications

A series of multinuclear heterometallic Cu−Zn complexes of molecular formula [(CuL)2Zn(dca)2] (1), [(CuL)2Zn(NO3)2] (2), [(CuL)2Zn2(Cl)4] (3), and [(CuL)2Zn2(NO2)4] (4) have been synthesized by reacting [CuL] as a “metalloligand (ML)” (where HL = N,N′-bis(5- chloro-2-hydroxybenzylidene)-2,2-dimethylpropane-1,3-diamine) and by varying the anions or coligands using the same molar ratios of the reactants. All of the four products including the ML have been characterized by infrared and UV−vis spectroscopies and elemental and single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses. By varying the anions, different structures and topologies are obtained which we have tried to rationalize by means of thorough density functional theory calculations. All of the complexes (1−4) have now been applied for several biological investigations to verify their therapeutic worth.