Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Molecular Diversity https://doi.org/10.1007/s11030-020-10037-x ORIGINAL ARTICLE Novel metal complexes containing 6‑methylpyridine‑2‑carboxylic acid as potent α‑glucosidase inhibitor: synthesis, crystal structures, DFT calculations, and molecular docking Davut Avcı 1  · Sümeyye Altürk 1  · Fatih Sönmez 2  · Ömer Tamer 1  · Adil Başoğlu 1  · Yusuf Atalay 1  · Belma Zengin Kurt 3  · Necmi Dege 4 Received: 18 October 2019 / Accepted: 9 January 2020 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 Abstract The World Health Organization (WHO) report shows that diabetes mellitus (DM) will be one of the ten deadly diseases in the near future. The best way to prevent DM is to decrease blood glucose levels and keep under control; therefore, it is important to design and synthesize the efective inhibitors that can be used in the treatment of DM disease. In this respect, a series of ten metal complexes containing 6-methylpyridine-2-carboxylic acid {[Cr(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]·H 2 O·NO 3 , (1), [Mn(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ], (2), [Ni(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]·2H 2 O, (3), [Hg(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O)], (4), [Cu(6-mpa) 2 (Py)], (5), [Cu(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O)]·H 2 O, (6), [Zn(6- mpa) 2 (H 2 O)]·H 2 O, (7), [Fe(6-mpa) 3 ], (8), [Cd(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]·2H 2 O, (9), and [Co(6-mpa) 2 (H 2 O) 2 ]·2H 2 O, (10)} were syn- thesized as α-glucosidase inhibitors. We found that the IC 50 values of the synthesized complexes ranged from 0.247 ± 0.10 to > 600 μM against α-glucosidase. The spectral analyses for these complexes characterized by XRD and LC–MS/MS were also carried out by FT-IR and UV–Vis spectra. Additionally, the DFT/HSEh1PBE/6-311G(d,p)/LanL2DZ level was applied to obtain optimal molecular geometries and spectral behaviors as well as signifcant contributions to the electronic transitions for the complexes. The molecular docking study was also performed to display interactions between the target protein (the template structure Saccharomyces cerevisiae isomaltase) and the synthesized complexes (110). Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11030-020-10037-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Davut Avcı davci@sakarya.edu.tr 1 Department of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Sakarya University, 54187 Sakarya, Turkey 2 Pamukova Vocational High School, Sakarya University of Applied Sciences, 54055 Sakarya, Turkey 3 Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Bezmialem Vakif University, 34093 Istanbul, Turkey 4 Department of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Ondokuz Mayıs University, 55139 Samsun, Turkey