Synthesis, cytotoxic and antimicrobial activities of novel cobalt and zinc complexes of benzimidazole derivatives

Abstract In this study fourteen novel cobalt (II) or zinc (II) complexes of benzimidazoles were synthesized from the 1-(4-substitutedbenzyl)-1 H -benzimidazoles and CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O or ZnCl 2 . Cytotoxic activities of novel complexes were investigated against lung cancer cells (A549) and BEAS-2B. Three of the examined compounds ( 1 , 4 and 5 ) showed high cytotoxic activity against A549. While the IC 50 of the cisplatin was 2.56 μg/mL for A549 cells at 72 h, the IC 50 values of compounds 1 , 4 and 5 were 1.97, 1.87 and 1.9 μg/mL, respectively. IC 50 values of these compounds for BEAS-2B cells were higher than the IC 50 values for A549. While the IC 50 values for BEAS-2B cells were 59.8, 24.5 and 32.67 μg/mL, respectively, the IC 50 of the cisplatin was determined as 2.53 μg/mL in the present work. Three of the compounds have also high antimicrobial activity against all the microorganisms used.