Nano zinc Oxide-Ruthenium (III) complex of novel coumarin derivative: Synthesis, Characterization, DNA Cleavage, anticancer and bioimaging activities

[Display omitted] •Synthesis of 3-acetylcoumarin derivative, Ruthenium(III) complex and Nano ZnO-Ru(III) complex.•Morphology and particle size of Nano ZnO-Ru(III) complex is observed through SEM and TEM analysis which supported with XRD results.•The DNA cleavage evaluation of compounds showed greater activity.•Ru(III) complex exhibited potent anticancer activity against MCF-7 and K-562 cell lines than the ligand.•The cell imaging of Nano ZnO-Ru(III) complex against L6 rat skeletal muscle cell line showed superior fluorescence at 100 μg/mL. The uniqueness of nanofunctionalized metal complexes would play a prominent role in medicinal chemistry, especially in cancer chemotherapy. Among the metal based chemotherapeutic drugs, ruthenium complexes exhibit different oxidation states, lower toxicity and remarkable antitumor activities than other anticancer drugs. In this investigation bioactive ruthenium(III) complex has been synthesized from novel coumarin derivative and it is functionalized with nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) under well defined condition. An octahedral geometry is proposed for the ruthenium complex based on analytical and spectrochemical characterization techniques (UV, FT-IR and NMR). The g|| and g⊥ values obtained from the ESR spectrum indicated high symmetry and octahedral field around ruthenium ion. The XRD patterns of all synthesized compounds explicit average particle sizes are nanometer range. The morphology and particle size of Nano ZnO-Ru(III) complex is also confirmed by using SEM and TEM analysis. The nanofunctionalized material exhibited enhanced fluorescence emissions at 674 nm and 681 nm. The evaluation of DNA cleavage study indicated compounds were effectively cleaved supercoiled pUC18 DNA by gel electrophoresis method. The examinations of in-vitro anticancer activities of compounds were studied against human breast (MCF-7) and leukemia (K-562) cancer cell lines. The ruthenium complex showed greater effect against MCF-7 with