A review on sulfonamides and their coordination compounds: Fighting diseases and catalytic applications

Sulfonamides belong to the most interesting classes of organic and bioactive compounds, historically introduced as the first widely used synthetic antibacterial agents. Currently, they still serve as versatile scaffolds across medicinal, coordination, and applied chemistry. Nowadays, the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance and the urgent need for improved therapeutic strategies are evident. Thus, sulfonamide derivatives have regained attention as adaptable platforms for designing compounds with broadened biological profiles, including their antimicrobial, anticancer, and enzyme-targeted activities. Moreover, sulfonamides have emerged as valuable ligands in coordination chemistry, offering diverse donor sets and binding modes that enable the design of metal-ion complexes with desired physicochemical properties and functions, including reactivity and biological behavior. It often selects and introduces multi-target mechanisms. Beyond biomedical relevance, sulfonamide-based coordination compounds are increasingly explored in catalytic applications, where ligand architecture and metal identity can be leveraged to control activity and selectivity. This review summarizes recent advances in sulfonamide chemistry and sulfonamide coordination compounds, emphasizing structure-property-function relationships, mechanistic trends, and emerging opportunities at the interface of disease treatment and catalysis.