Schiff Base Metal Complexes as Antimicrobial and Anticancer Agents

The Schiff bases known as privileged ligands in organic chemistry are formed by the condensation of a primary amine with a carbonyl group of aldehyde/ketone. Due to their chelating properties and ability to coordinate with a wide range of transition metal ions of various oxidation states, they are considered a significant family of organic compounds. Because of their wide uses in inorganic, bioinorganic, analytical, material science, and pharmaceutical chemistry, Schiff bases and their metal complexes have sparked a lot of interest. The review starts with an overview of Schiff bases and their metal complexes. It highlights the biological activities given by Schiff base ligands and metal complexes (antimicrobial activities and anticancer activities). The use of metallodrugs has proven to be a successful method in anticancer and antimicrobial treatment, and it has the potential to be utilized to treat multidrug-resistant illnesses. Because anticancer and antimicrobial targets are different, Schiff bases can be structurally changed to generate the desired molecule, targeting a specific disease.