Synthesis, crystal structure and nuclease activity of a Cu(II) complex having two different co-ordination geometries in the same unit cell

Abstract

A new Cu(II) complex of a Schiff base ligand having N2O donor set has been synthesized and fully characterized through its single crystal X-ray studies. Two different co-ordination patterns viz. square planar and square pyramidal for Cu(II) were observed within the same unit cell. The DNA binding of copper(II) complex was investigated through UV-vis, fluorescence as well as cyclic voltammetric studies. The complex exhibited efficient functional mimicking of nuclease activity over the plasmid pBR322 DNA. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.