Schiff bases and their copper complexes have been previously studied for their anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor as well as anti-microbial activities. Schiff bases can be derivatized to gain photoluminiscence capacity. This property of the schiff bases enables the transfer of the electrons upon absorption of the light at a specific wavelength. In this study, we exploited this attribute of novel copper bearing schiff bases and tested their photodynamic biological activities. These compounds exerted photodynamic anti-inflammatory activities on the in vitro activated mammalian macrophages. Compared with salicylic acid control groups, these novel schiff bases had stronger activity which became more prominent with photo-induction. Moreover, they also had anti-microbial activity on gram negative bacteria E.coli and gram positive bacteria S.aureus.This anti-microbial activity was stronger than that of Neomycin on both bacterial strains. Our results suggest their potential use as anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial agents both in the dark as well as after photo-induction.
Keywords: Anti-inflammatory molecules; Anti-microbial activity; Immunomodulation; Inflammation; Macrophage.