Preliminary screening of non-platinum complexes of Schiff bases as antitumour agents using fluorimetry

Based on the consistency of the in vivo and in vitro interactions of drugs with DNA, a fluorimetric method has been developed as a new in vitro method for preliminary screening of antitumour agents. This method was tested using Schiff bases synthesized from salicylaldehyde with 1-alanine, 1-asparagine and 1-histidine, and complexes of these Schiff bases with Cu(II), Zn(II), Ni(II) and Sn(IV) as potential antitumour agents. The study of the interaction of the complexes with DNA by a fluorescence probe ethidium bromide (EthBr)-DNA system indicated the parallelism between the binding constants and antineoplastic ratios. The relationship between structure and antitumour activity was investigated.