Vanadium complexes as potential metal-based antimicrobial drugs

Radical increase of antibiotic resistance among microbes has become a serious problem for clinics all over the world that has led to the need for search of novel types of antimicrobial drugs. Each year, researchers synthesize a multitude of compounds in pursuit of identifying potential chemotherapeutic agents through diverse methodological evaluations. Among the vast array of biologically significant compounds, coordination compounds exhibit a broad range of activities within biological systems. Chelation, in particular, induces significant alterations in the biological properties of ligands and the metal component, contributing to their efficacy. Chelation increases the lipophilicity of metal complexes as a result of which they are easily absorbed by the microorganisms, thus leading to their easy passage across cell membrane. The research and development in the field of metallodrugs can be advantageous to overcome the problem encountered in antibiotic resistance. The multifaceted involvement of vanadium relative to other biometals within biological systems, coupled with its comparatively lower toxicity, underscores its utility in the advancement of novel metal-based therapeutic agents. This review aims to delineate the biological significance of V(V/IV/III) complexes as antimicrobial agents. The amassed data indicate a correlation between the potency of vanadium complexes as antimicrobial agents and the oxidation state of the metal, with III being the least toxic and V representing the most toxic oxidation state of vanadium.