Chromium coordination compounds with antimicrobial activity: Synthetic routes, structural characteristics, and antibacterial activity

A major threat to public health worldwide is that the antimicrobial activity of the established drugs is constantly reduced due to the resistance that bacteria develop throughout the years. Some transition metal complexes show higher antibacterial activity against several bacteria compared to those of clinically used antibiotics. Novel classes of molecules provide new challenges and seem promising to solve the crisis that the overuse of antibiotics has led over the last years. This review discusses the challenges of chromium-based metallodrugs as antimicrobial agents. In particular, the synthetic routes, the structural characteristics, as well as the antimicrobial activity of 32 chromium (III) complexes have been presented.