Rings, chains and helices : new antimicrobial silver coordination compounds with (iso-)nicotinic acid derivatives

Complexes with silver ions have great potential for applications in medicine. Appropriate bidentate ligands, binding to silver ions, are able to generate coordination polymers as well as molecular entities as a function of ligand flexibility, conformation and length. Here we present the continuation of our previous studies in this field with ligands based on oligomers of polyethylene glycol, functionalized at both ends with either nicotinic or isonicotinic acid. The structures of three ligands and nine new coordination compounds are presented. A large variety of structures are obtained as a function of counterion, solvent and ligand-to-metal ratio, such as isolated rings, offset stacked rings, parallel chains and entangled chains, and their antimicrobial properties as well as biocompatibility are assessed.