Novel binuclear antimony(III) halide complexes of 5-methoxy-2-mercaptobenzimidazole: synthesis, structural characterization, and biological studies.

The new binuclear antimony(III) complexes corresponding to the formulas [SbCl3(µ2-S)(MtMBZIM)2]2 (1), {[SbBr2(µ2-Br)(MtMBZIM)2]2·H2O} (2) and {[SbI2(µ2-I)(MtMBZIM)2]2·H2O} (3) (MtMBZIM: 5-methoxy-2-mercaptobenzimidazole) have been synthesized and structurally characterized with regard to their melting point, elemental analysis, molar conductivity, FT-IR, and FT-Raman spectroscopic techniques, and TG-DTA analysis. The crystal structures of 1-3 have been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Compounds 1-3 are doubly bridged dimers and in each square pyramidal monomeric unit, the equatorial plane is formed by two sulfur and two halogen atoms in trans-S, trans-X arrangement. The monomeric units in 2 and 3 are linked to each other via halogen bridges, but in 1, they are linked to each other via sulfur bridges; to our knowledge, this binding type is the first example of trans-S, trans-X square pyramidal antimony(III) complexes. Newly synthesized complexes with their corresponding ligand have been tested for their in vitro cytotoxic activity against human adenocarcinoma cervix (HeLa) cells as well as for their antimicrobial activity. The influence of 1-3 on the catalytic peroxidation of the linoleic acid by the enzyme lipoxygenase (LOX) has been determined experimentally and theoretically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]