Evaluation of the cell cytotoxicity and DNA/BSA binding and cleavage activity of some dioxidovanadium(V) complexes containing aroylhydrazones

Three dioxidovanadium(V) complexes [VO2L1-3] (1-3) [HL1 = 1-napthoyl hydrazone of 2-acetyl pyridine, HL2 = 2-furoyl hydrazone of 2-acetyl pyridine and H2L3 = isonicotinoyl hydrazone of 2-hydroxy benzaldehyde] have been reported. All the complexes were characterized by various spectroscopy (IR, UV-visible and NMR) and the molecular structures of 1 and 2 were characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. Structural report established five-coordinate geometries, distorted toward square pyramidal for each of 1 and 2, based on a tridentate -O,N,N coordinating anion and two oxido-O atoms. The experimental results show that the complexes interact with calf-thymus DNA (CT-DNA) possibly by a groove binding mode, with binding constants of similar to 10(5) M-1. All complexes show good photo-induced cleavage of pUC19 supercoiled plasmid DNA with complex 1 showing the highest photo-induced DNA cleavage activity of similar to 68%. 1-3 also exhibit moderate binding affinity in the range of 10(3)-10(4) M-1 towards bovine serum albumin (BSA), while all the complexes show good photoinduced BSA cleavage activity. Moreover the antiproliferative activity of all these complexes was studied, which reveal all compounds are significantly cytotoxic towards the HeLa cell line. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.