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Review
. 2023 Apr 27;15(5):1348.
doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics15051348.

Comprehensive Insights into Medicinal Research on Imidazole-Based Supramolecular Complexes

Shu-Rui Li  1 , Yi-Min Tan  1 , Ling Zhang  2 , Cheng-He Zhou  1
Affiliations
Review

Comprehensive Insights into Medicinal Research on Imidazole-Based Supramolecular Complexes

Shu-Rui Li et al. Pharmaceutics. .

Abstract

The electron-rich five-membered aromatic aza-heterocyclic imidazole, which contains two nitrogen atoms, is an important functional fragment widely present in a large number of biomolecules and medicinal drugs; its unique structure is beneficial to easily bind with various inorganic or organic ions and molecules through noncovalent interactions to form a variety of supramolecular complexes with broad medicinal potential, which is being paid an increasing amount of attention regarding more and more contributions to imidazole-based supramolecular complexes for possible medicinal application. This work gives systematical and comprehensive insights into medicinal research on imidazole-based supramolecular complexes, including anticancer, antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, and anti-inflammatory aspects as well as ion receptors, imaging agents, and pathologic probes. The new trend of the foreseeable research in the near future toward imidazole-based supramolecular medicinal chemistry is also prospected. It is hoped that this work provides beneficial help for the rational design of imidazole-based drug molecules and supramolecular medicinal agents and more effective diagnostic agents and pathological probes.

Keywords: antibacterial; anticancer; complex; imidazole; probe; supermolecule.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Scheme 1
Scheme 1
The general scheme covering this review for medicinal potential of imidazole-based supramolecular complexes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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