Coordination of a triazine ligand with CuII and AgI investigated by spectral, structural, theoretical and docking studies.

Two complexes of 5-phenyl-3-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,2,4-triazine (PPTA), namely (ethanol-κO)bis(nitrato-κO)[5-phenyl-3-(pyridin-2-yl-κN)-1,2,4-triazine-κN2]copper(II), [Cu(NO3)2(C14H10N4)(C2H6O)] or [Cu(NO3)2(PPTA)(EtOH)] (1), and bis[μ-5-phenyl-3-(pyridin-2-yl)-1,2,4-triazine]-κ3N1:N2,N3;κ3N2,N3:N1-bis[(nitrato-κO)silver(I)], [Ag2(NO3)2(C14H10N4)2] or [Ag2(NO3)2(μ-PPTA)2] (2), were prepared and characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The X-ray structure analysis of 1 revealed a copper complex with square-pyramdial geometry containing two O-donor nitrate ligands along with an N,N'-donor PPTA ligand and one O-donor ethanol ligand. In the binuclear structure of 2, formed by the bridging of two PPTA ligands, each Ag atom has an AgN3O environment and square-planar geometry. In addition to the four dative interactions, each Ag atom interacts with two O atoms of two nitrate ligands on adjacent complexes to complete a pseudo-octahedral geometry. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the geometry around the Cu and Ag atoms in 1opt and 2opt (opt is optimized) for an isolated molecule is the same as the experimental results. In 1, O-H...O hydrogen bonds form R12(4) motifs. In the crystal network of the complexes, in addition to the hydrogen bonds, there are π-π stacking interactions between the aromatic rings (phenyl, pyridine and triazine) of the ligands on adjacent complexes. The ability of the ligand and complexes 1 and 2 to interact with ten selected biomacromolecules (BRAF kinase, CatB, DNA gyrase, HDAC7, rHA, RNR, TrxR, TS, Top II and B-DNA) was investigated by docking studies. The results show that the studied compounds can interact with proteins better than doxorubicin (except for TrxR and Top II).