Supramolecular Arrangement and DFT analysis of Zinc(II) Schiff Bases: An Insight towards the Influence of Compartmental Ligands on Binding Interaction with Protein.

We report, for the first time, a detailed crystallographic study of the supramolecular arrangement for a set of zinc(II) Schiff base complexes containing the ligand 2,6-bis((E)-((2-(dimethylamino)ethyl)imino)methyl)-4-R-phenol], where R=methyl/tert-butyl/chloro. The supramolecular study acts as a pre-screening tool for selecting the compartmental ligand R of the Schiff base for effective binding with a targeted protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA). The most stable hexagonal arrangement of the complex [Zn-Me] (R=Me) stabilises the ligand with the highest FMO energy gap (ΔE=4.