Novel Cytocompatible Chitosan Schiff Base Derivative as a Potent Antibacterial, Antidiabetic, and Anticancer Agent

This study intends to develop a novel bioactive chitosan Schiff base (CTS-SB) derivative via coupling of chitosan (CTS) with 4-((5, 5-dimethyl-3-oxocyclohex-1-en-1-yl) amino) benzene-sulfonamide. The alteration in the chemical structure of CTS-SB was verified using 1H NMR and FT-IR analysis, while the thermal and morphological properties were inspected by TGA and SEM characterization tools, respectively. Ion exchange capacity of the developed CTS-SB derivative recorded a maximal value of 12.1 meq/g compared to 10.1 meq/g for pristine CTS. In addition, antibacterial activity of CTS-SB derivative was greatly boosted against Escherichia coli (E coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) bacteria. Minimum inhibition concentration of CTS-SB derivative was perceived at 50 µg/mL, while the highest concentration (250 µg/mL) could inhibit the growth of S. aureus up to 91%. What’s more, enhanced antidiabetic activity by CTS-SB derivative, which displayed higher inhibitory values of α-amylase (57.9%) and α-glucosidase (63.9%), compared to those of pure CTS (49.8 and 53.4%), respectively Furthermore, cytotoxicity investigation on HepG-2 cell line revealed potential anticancer activity along with good safety margin against primary human skin fibroblasts (HSF cells) and decent cytocompatibility. Collectively, the gained results hypothesized that CTS-SB derivative could be effectively applied as a promising antibacterial, anticancer and antidiabetic agent for advanced biomedical applications.