Syntheses, structures and bioactivities of silver(I) complexes with dithioether ligands that contain a di- or triethylene glycol chain and different terminal groups

A series of flexible dithioethyl ligands that contain ethyleneoxy segments were designed and synthesized, including bis(2-(pyridin-2-ylthio)ethyl)ether (L1), 1,2-bis(2-(pyridin-2-ylthio)ethoxy)ethane (L2), bis(2-(benzothiazol-2-ylthio)ethyl)ether (L3) and 1,2-bis(2-(benzothiazol-2-ylthio)ethoxy)ethane (L4). Reactions of these ligands with AgNO3 led to the formation of four new supramolecular coordination complexes, [Ag2L1(NO3)2]2 (1), [Ag2L2(NO3)2] (2), [AgL3(NO3)]∞ (3) and [AgL4(NO3)] (4) in which the length of the (CH2CH2O)n spacers and the terminal groups of ligands cause subtle geometrical differences. Studies of the inhibitory effect to the growth of Phaeodactylum tricornutum show that all four complexes are active and the compound 4 has the highest inhibitory activity.