New thiopyridine complexes: design, electrochemical preparation and biological assessment

Novel complexes of Ru (III), Cu (II) and Au (III) (2–4) were prepared using 6-phenyl-2-thioxo-4-(trifluoromethyl)-1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carbonitrile (HL, 1) adopting either electrochemical or traditional chemical methods. The electrochemical method is preferred in the synthesis of the complexes than the chemical one because it affords pure products with higher yields in shorter reaction time. The novel thiopyridine complexes were characterized by elemental analyses, IR, ¹H, ¹⁹F-NMR, TGA and DTA measurements. The antimicrobial activity evaluation revealed that the complex bearing copper metal 3 has nearly the same activity as the reference drug ciprofloxacin. Anti-inflammatory activity evaluation showed that complex 4 containing gold displayed anti-inflammatory activity higher than the reference drug celecoxib upon using carrageenan rat hind paw edema method.