MECHANICAL, ANTIBACTERIAL AND ANTIPROLIFERATIVE PROPERTIES OF IRIDIUM- AND RHODIUM-CONTAINING CHITOSAN FILMS

Over the last decades, the research in the chemistry of natural polymers as well as deriva-tives based on them has become most relevant. These compounds include metal cations in their composition, which opens up new opportunities for the application of these compounds in the chemical, food processing and pharmaceutical industries. A developing area is the determination of the antiproliferative activity of the resulting compounds and materials, which provides opportu-nities for the development of selective anti-cancer drugs. Rhodium-and iridium-containing films based on the natural polymer of chitosan plasticized with glycerol have been obtained. In this work, a comprehensive analysis of the materials obtained by X-ray phase analysis (XRD), X-ray spectral analysis (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was carried out, and the mechanical char-acteristics and biological properties (antibacterial and antiproliferative activity) of the obtained films were also studied. An analysis of the mechanical properties of the films showed that iridium -containing samples are characterized by higher mechanical properties than rhodium-containing samples. Thus, we can conclude that the nature of the metal center affects the mechanical proper-ties of the films. Iridium films have greater antibacterial activity than the corresponding rhodium films. The antiproliferative activity of the studied samples is due to the content of rhodium(III) and iridium(IV) and is practically independent of the nature of the introduced metal cations.