Synthesis, DFT, computational exploration of chemical reactivity, molecular docking studies of novel formazan metal complexes and their biological applications

The computational exploration of chemical reactivity and molecular docking of the synthesized formazan compounds (S1-S6) were studied. Further, their antimicrobial activity against bacterial strains (S. epidermidis, B. cereus, K. pneumoniae and P. aeruginosa) and against fungal strains (T. mentagrophytes, C. albicans, A. niger, S. cerevisiae and C. glabrata) using agar diffusion method and antioxidant activity following DPPH inhibition assays were evaluated. Anticancer activity was executed in vitro model of human breast carcinoma (MCF-7) cell line. The superior and enhanced antibacterial and antimycotic activities were exhibited by formazan compound (S4) by presenting maximum ZOIs and MICs values. While enhanced antioxidant in terms of percentage inhibition of DPPH and cytotoxic effect on human breast carcinoma-cells demonstrated by formazan compound (S1) which was further validated by the results of molecular docking studies of (S1) with the human estrogen receptor protein. In order to compute quantum chemical reactivity descriptors from conceptual density functional theory (CDFT) point of view of this system, including chemical potential (mu), chemical hardness (eta), electrophilicity (omega), condensed Fukui function and dual descriptors are calculated at the same level of calculation. The most active sites of these molecules are determined and correlated with experimental data. The present investigation displays that formazans compounds could be potential drug candidate that constrains the growth of microbial strains, possess ability to cause cytotoxic effect on carcinoma cells and act as effective scavenger for free radical species.