Fluorenone Schiff base derivative complexes of ruthenium, rhodium and iridium exhibiting efficient antibacterial activity and DNA-binding affinity

Abstract Metal precursors [(arene)MCl2]2 (arene = p-cymene, Cp*; M = Ru, Rh and Ir) on reacting with 9-fluorenone derivative ligands L1, L2 and L3 resulted in the formation of mononuclear bidentate cationic N∩N bonded complexes. The biological studies of these complexes such as antibacterial activity studies (against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria) revealed significant antibacterial activity with complexes 4, 7 and 9 having the highest activity potency (in-vitro). Whilst for DNA-binding studies, the results revealed that complexes 4 and 5 displayed significant changes in their spectral features upon addition of SM-DNA, thus, indicating that these complexes bind to DNA with a significant affinity.