Due to their unique structural, physical and chemical properties, cyclodextrins and their derivatives have been of great interest to scientists and researchers in both academia and industry for over a century. Many of the industrial applications of cyclodextrins have arisen from their ability to encapsulate, either partially or fully, other molecules, especially organic compounds. Cyclodextrins are non-toxic oligopolymers of glucose that help to increase the solubility of organic compounds with poor aqueous solubility, can mask odors from foul-smelling compounds, and have been widely studied in the area of drug delivery. In this review, we explore the structural and chemical properties of cyclodextrins that give rise to this encapsulation (i.e., the formation of inclusion complexes) ability. This review is unique from others written on this subject because it provides powerful insights into factors that affect cyclodextrin encapsulation. It also examines these insights in great detail. Later, we provide an overview of some industrial applications of cyclodextrins, while emphasizing the role of encapsulation in these applications. We strongly believe that cyclodextrins will continue to garner interest from scientists for many years to come, and that novel applications of cyclodextrins have yet to be discovered.

Vanadium compounds have been set in various fields as anticancer, anti-diabetic, anti-parasitic, anti-viral, and anti-bacterial agents. This study reports the synthesis and structural characterization of oxidovanadium(IV)-based imidazole drug complexes by the elemental analyzer, molar conductance, magnetic moment, spectroscopic techniques, as well as thermal analysis. The obtained geometries were studied theoretically using density functional theory (DFT) under the B3LYP level. The DNA-binding nature of the ligands and their synthesized complexes has been studied by the electronic absorption titrations method. The biological studies were carried with in-vivo assays and the molecular docking method. The EPR spectra asserted the geometry around the vanadium center to be a square pyramid for metal complexes. The geometries have been confirmed using DFT under the B3LYP level. Moreover, the quantum parameters proposed promising bioactivity of the oxidovanadium(IV) complexes. The results of the DNA-binding revealed that the investigated complexes bind to DNA via non-covalent mode, and the intrinsic binding constant (Kb) value for the [VO(SO4)(MNZ)2] H2O complex was promising, which was 2.0 × 106 M−1. Additionally, the cytotoxic activity of the synthesized complexes exhibited good inhibition toward both hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG-2) and human breast cancer (HCF-7) cell lines. The results of molecular docking displayed good correlations with experimental cytotoxicity findings. Therefore, these findings suggest that our synthesized complexes can be introduced as effective anticancer agents.

6‐mercaptopurine (6‐MP) is used for treating various cancers and autoimmune disorders. A few examples of transition metal complexes of 6‐MP have been shown to enhance its anticancer activity, but many remain untested. We isolated five highly stable and colored metal complexes of 6‐MP and confirmed their structures by elemental analysis, spectral, and thermal techniques. Infrared (IR) spectra revealed that 6‐MP is a bidentate ligand that interacts through sulfur and pyrimidine nitrogen in a 1:2 (M:L) molar ratio. The magnetic susceptibility and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra for the Cu(II) complex revealed an octahedral arrangement around the metal ion with strong covalent bonding. The fully optimized geometries of the metal structures obtained using density function theory (DFT)/B3LYP calculations were used to verify the structural and biological features. DNA titration revealed that the octahedral Cu(II) complex has a critical binding constant value of Kb = 8 × 105. Docking studies using three different cancer protein receptors were used to predict the biological applications of the synthesized drug‐metal complexes. Finally, cytotoxicity assays against a myeloma cancer cell line (MM) and a colon cancer cell line (Caco‐2) revealed favorable anticancer activity for the copper complex, exceeding that of the gold‐standard chemotherapeutic cisplatin.

Thiamphenicol (TM) is an antimicrobial drug and a methyl-sulfonyl analogue of chloramphenicol. New metal complexes of TM with Zn(II), Cu(II), Ni(II), Co(II) and Fe(II) were synthesized and characterized using elemental...