Synthesis and Biological Studies of Mixed ligand Complexes: A Review

Abstract

Mixed ligand complexes (MXLCs) have received significant academic interest in the field of coordination chemistry due to their structural diversity, unique physicochemical properties, and wide-ranging industrial and therapeutic applications. This review explains their synthetic pathways, as defined by analytical methods of FT-IR, ¹H and ¹³C NMR, UV-Vis spectroscopy, and single crystal X-ray diffraction, and simultaneously attributes their prominent biological functions, which include antimicrobial, anticancer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory. Significant synthetic approaches are described: direct mixing, template-directed assembly, sequential addition and ligand substitution are examined critically. This increased bioactivity of M-XLCs could be explained by the ligand-induced chelation effects, which make the complex more lipophilic and promote its interactions with cellular targets and thus outperform the activity of traditional complexes and free ligands. This flexibility makes M-XLCs powerful scaffolds to generate superior therapeutic and industrial catalysts. In this light, future studies must focus on the clarification of the thermodynamic principles that govern these complexes, thus making coordination systems to be designed and optimized rationally.