New thiosemicarbazones and their palladium(II) complexes: Synthesis, spectroscopic characterization, X-ray structure and anticancer evaluation

Thiosemicarbazones (TSCs) have proven to be an important group of N[sbnd]S donor Schiff base ligands. Their biological activities, structural and donor diversities are often improved after coordination to a metal ion. In this work, novel thiophene-based thiosemicarbazone ligands; (E)-N,N’-dimethyl-2-((5′-methyl-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)methylene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L1), (E)-N-ethyl-2-((5-phenylthiophen-2-yl)methylene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L2) and (E)-2-((5′methyl)-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)methylene)-N-phenylhydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L3) were synthesized via condensation reaction. The corresponding complexes (C1, C2 and C3) were synthesized by reacting the ligands with Pd(cod)Cl₂ under inert nitrogen environment. All the prepared ligands and complexes were characterized by using the FTIR, UV–Vis, ¹H and ¹³C NMR, elemental analysis and single crystal X-ray crystallography on ligand L2. The anticancer activities of the complexes were investigated against human the Caco-2, HT-29, HeLa and non-cancerous KMST-6 cell lines. In the preliminary studies, unexpectedly of all ligands and complexes, L1 showed the best anti-tumor activities at 100 µg/mL with cell viabilities < 31% in all the cell lines. In general, cell lines were more susceptible to complexes than free ligands except for C1. Complex C2 had the highest activity among complexes; HeLa (8.4%), HT-29 (8.8%), Caco-2 (16.1%) and KMST-6 (24.5%) cell viabilities at a concentration of 100 µg/mL. The C3 complex demonstrated appreciable selectivity since it had minimal effect on non-cancerous KMST-6 cell line (76%) with relatively reduced cytotoxicity in other cells except in HeLa (0.0%). All the complexes prepared inhibited proliferation of HeLa cells.