Unsymmetrically substituted benzimidazolium based Silver(I)‎-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes: synthesis, characterization and in vitro anticancer study against human breast cancer and colon cancer

Abstract EN

The promising biomedical applications of silver complexes stimulated the researchers to test these compounds against cancer.

The present research work was designed to achieve this goal.

In this work, a series of 5-methyl benzimidazole based N-Heterocyclic carbene ligands and respec tive silver(1) complexes were synthesized and tested on cancer cell lines to assess their anticancer activity.

Unsymmetrically substituted benzimidazole was found unique in its reactivity and gener ation of a single product during NHC ligand formation was only possible after two successive alky lations with same alkyl halide.

The corresponding Ag(1)-NHC adducts were obtained by in situ deprotonation of the NHC ligands.

Synthesized compounds were characterized by various physcio-chemical and spectroscopic methods.

Single crystal X-ray diffraction study of complex 7 revealed its mononuclear structure.

Preliminary in vitro anticancer study of azolium salts and respective Ag(1)-NHC complexes against human breast cancer (MDA-MB-231), colon cancer (HCT-116) and normal endothelial cells (EA.hy926) cells revealed that all the compounds are more