Thiosemicarbazone complexes as versatile medicinal chemistry agents: a review

Objective: Thiosemicarbazones are Schiff based ligands of significant biological importance and their biological relevance has been studied for a considerable amount of time period. When the thiosemicarbazones bind with metal ions, they have shown an array of potential anticancer, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities etc. They have also found numerous applications in Analytical Chemistry. This present review summarizes some of the medicinal benefits of thiosemicarbazone based complexes especially with transition metals. Data Sources: The studies cited in the present review were sourced from journals, books and conference proceedings preferentially written and published in English. Literature from the past 15 years or so has been included in the article. Papers indexed in known databases such as PUBMED, SCOPUS, INDEX COPERNICUS, CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ABSTRACTS, MEDLINE, EMBASE, EBSCO, DOAJ, and THOMSON REUTERS have been reviewed and included. Summary of the contents of the article: The study unravels the mechanistic action of these compounds on in vitro living beings viz. cell culture as well as animal models. An elaborate review of the available literature on thiosemicarbazones has shown that the modifications in the ligand moiety leads to enhancement in its activity and some of the best structural alterations have been cited in the review. Some of the potential future applications and uses of the complexes have also been discussed. Structure optimization of the compounds may result in path breaking finding of potential anticancer and antimicrobial drugs. Conclusion: Latest advances in medicinal inorganic chemistry have given considerable importance to the development of metal based drugs with thiosemicabazones. The presence of metal ion in the drug moiety usually mitigates the ill effects of the compounds, this may lead to the production of new metal based drugs. The key factors identified for their action has been the inhibition of RR, topo II and the production of ROS, but identification of other probable targets need to be explored.