Synthesis and characterization of Cu2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+ binding capability of some amino- and imidazole hydroxamic acids: Effects of substitution of side chain amino-N for imidazole-N or hydroxamic-N-H for -N-CH3 on metal complexation.

Solution equilibrium studies on Cu(II)-, Ni(II)- and Zn(II)-N-Me-?-Alaninehydroxamic acid (N-Me-?-Alaha), -N-Me-?-alaninehydroxamic acid (N-Me-?-Alaha), -Imidazole-4-carbohydroxamic acid (Im-4-Cha), -N-Me-imidazole-4-carbohydroxamic acid (N-Me-Im-4-Cha) and -Imidazole-4-acetohydroxamic acid (Im-4-Aha) systems have been performed by pH-potentiometry, UV-Vis spectrophotometry, EPR, CD, ESI-MS and 1H NMR methods. According to the results: (i) the amino-N atoms are more basic in N-Me-?-Alaha and N-Me-?-Alaha than the hydroxamate function, but the trend is just the opposite between the imidazole-N(3) and hydroxamate. (ii) The metal ion anchor is always the hydroxamate part in the amino acid derivatives, while it is always the imidazole-N(3) in the studied imidazolehydroxamic acids. (iii) The three studied N-Me derivatives do not form metallacrowns. Only hydroxamate type chelate is formed with N-Me-?-Alaha, but with N-Me-?-Alaha a new type of coordination mode (via amino-N and hydroxamate-O) also exists. N-Me-Im-4-Cha also forms a dinuclear complex, [M2L3], with Cu(II) and Ni(II) (but not with Zn(II)). In this complex, one of the three ligands might bridge the two metal ions (five-membered hydroxamate-(O,O) plus five-membered (Nim, Ocarb) bridging bis-chelating mode), while each of the additional two ligands binds to one metal. (iv) The two studied N-H derivatives, having dissociable proton on the hydroxamic-N, are able to form metallacrown species. A pentanuclear complex, [M5L4H-4], is exclusively formed above pH 4 between Cu(II) and Im-4-Aha. Interestingly, this 12-metallacrown-4 type complex, although together with various mononuclear binding isomers, appears also with Ni(II) and Zn(II). Unfortunately, the complexes of Im-4-Cha are not soluble in water at physiological pH at all.