Influence of Ferrocene and Transition Metals on the Biological Activities of Schiff Bases

A series of organic and organometallic Schiff bases bearing phenylferrocene and their six transition metal complexes have been prepared and tested for their potential biological applications by using antifungal, antibacterial, antitumor activities, toxicity testing against the brine shrimp and DNA damage analysis. The copper and cobalt complexes of organic Schiff base showed significant antibacterial activity. The antifungal activities tested against six fungal strains revealed that N-(4-hydroxybenzylidene) aniline (A5) had the highest antifungal activity. Most of these compounds showed cytotoxic activity against the brine shrimp. The results of showed that these compounds had significant antitumor activity, up to 97% in the case of N-(4-chlorobenzylidene) aniline (A3). Only two compounds N-(2-hydroxy benzylidene) 4-ferrocenylaniline (F2) and Nickel (II) complex of organic Schiff base (CO/sub 2/) had DNA damaging activity at 20mg/ml concentration. (author)