European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE SCHIFF BASE NANOPARTICLES: A REVIEW

Samta Goyal, Usha Bansal* and Swati Agrawal

ABSTRACT

Imine bonds containing substances called Schiff bases are known for their role in medicines apart from other fields of human interest. Their complexes with transition metals have been studied at length for their role in health of mankind. Recent awareness of climate change and harmful effect on environment attributed to fast pace of industrialization, has got the scientist community into focussing their attention on developing novel materials having same or improved qualities. One such area of attention is synthetic pathways leading to bioactive Schiff base metal complexes. Ability of Schiff base to act as ligand to various metals to form complexes has been explored extensively due to their application in vast industrial activities such as agriculture, cosmetics, dyes, etc. Being of pharmacological importance (antifungal, antibacterial and anti-cancerous activities), synthetic procedures have been reported for nano size Schiff base metal complexes using different transition metals. Nano chitosan, graphene oxide and magnetic nanoparticles supported Schiff bases are also investigated for their biological and industrial applications. These nano size materials/hybrids not only exhibit desirable biological efficiency, additional features due to their size make them useful in other aspects of medical treatments such as drug delivery. In this review we bring together work done in this field over last five years.

Keywords: Schiff base, Nanoparticles, Bioactive, antibacterial, anticancer.