A review on antimicrobial and anticancer applications of Schiff base chelates

Schiff base metal complexes have received substantial attention owing to their numerous applications in biological activities such as antimicrobial, anticancer, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, anti-HIV, antipyretic, anthelminthic, and excellent properties in catalysis, metallurgy, polymer stabilizers, pigments and dyes, sensors, and detection. Recent peer journals were collected from Google Scholar, Web of science and Scopus. This review highlights the antimicrobial and anticancer properties of recently synthesized Schiff bases and their metal complexes. The synthesised Schiff base metal complexes such as Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), Zn(II) and Cd(II) exhibit higher antimicrobial activity based on Overton's concept and Tweedy's chelation theory, due to their electrophilicity and lipophilicity, and also to the presence of electron-withdrawing and electron-donating groups. These factors enhanced the biological activity, and the metal complexes exhibited good anticancer activity with low IC50 values. The Schiff base metal complexes exhibit promising antimicrobial and anticancer activity and are also applicable in many fields, such as bioinorganic chemistry, medicine, environmental science, sensors, catalysis, and analytical chemistry.