New thiosemicarbazones and their palladium(II) complexes: Synthesis, spectroscopic characterization, X-ray structure and anticancer evaluation

[Display omitted] •Ligands synthesized in ethanolic solutions resulted in high yields.•Synthesis of Pd-complexes (C1,C2andC3) via Pd(COD)Cl2 resulted to high yields > 90%•Complex C3 had selective anticancer activities.•All the cell lines were highly susceptibletoL1. Thiosemicarbazones (TSCs) have proven to be an important group of NS donor Schiff base ligands. Their biological activities, structural and donor diversities are often improved after coordination to a metal ion. In this work, novel thiophene-based thiosemicarbazone ligands; (E)-N,N’-dimethyl-2-((5′-methyl-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)methylene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L1), (E)-N-ethyl-2-((5-phenylthiophen-2-yl)methylene)hydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L2) and (E)-2-((5′methyl)-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)methylene)-N-phenylhydrazine-1-carbothioamide (L3) were synthesized via condensation reaction. The corresponding complexes (C1, C2 and C3) were synthesized by reacting the ligands with Pd(cod)Cl2 under inert nitrogen environment. All the prepared ligands and complexes were characterized by using the FTIR, UV–Vis, 1H and 13C NMR, elemental analysis and single crystal X-ray crystallography on ligand L2. The anticancer activities of the complexes were investigated against human the Caco-2, HT-29, HeLa and non-cancerous KMST-6 cell lines. In the preliminary studies, unexpectedly of all ligands and complexes, L1 showed the best anti-tumor activities at 100 µg/mL with cell viabilities