New Ferrocene Based Thiourea and Guanidines: Synthesis, Structural Elucidation, Aggregation Properties, DNA Binding Studies, and DFT calculations

One new ferrocenyl thiourea and four new ferrocene-based alkyl guanidines have been successfully synthesized and well characterized by FT-IR, 1H and 13C NMR. Aggregation properties of ferrocene-based guanidines have been assessed by determining their critical micelles concentration through tensiometry and UV-Visible spectroscopy in the ethanol solution. The results obtained through both the techniques were in close agreement. DFT calculations were performed to calculate the charges distribution, EHOMO, ELUMO and band gaps of synthesized compounds which were further supported through UV-Visible spectroscopy. Due to the ability of ferrocene and guanidine compounds to bind with DNA, their DNA binding studies were performed through cyclic voltammetry and UV-Visible spectroscopy. Binding constant values of the guanidine derivatives are higher than the thiourea and have a linear dependence on the lipophilicity.

Maria Azeem, Jahangeer Ali Patujo, Saira Fatima, Amin Badshah, Laiba Saleem and Saif-ur-Rehman