N-alkylbenzimidazole silver(I) complexes: Synthesis, biological evaluation and molecular docking study

Abstract

A series of N-alkylbenzimidazole silver(I) complexes were synthesized and fully characterized by FT-IR, Mass, 1H, 13C{1H} NMR spectroscopy, and elemental analysis. Synthesized N-alkylbenzimidazole silver(I) complexes were investigated for their antimicrobial activities against bacteria Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and the fungal strains Candida albicans and Candida glabrata. All the complexes (2a-f) showed higher antimicrobial activity against bacteria than fungi strains. In particular, complexes 2b and 2e showed comparable activity to Ampicillin against Escherichia coli. Also, all complexes showed better activity than Ampicillin against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The complex 2e showed remarkable activity against Candida albicans (12.5 µg/mL) and Candida glabrata (25 µg/mL). The molecules that were first optimized by DFT-based calculation methods were also analyzed by molecular docking methods against DNA gyrase of E. Coli, CYP51 from Candida glabrata, and Penicillin Binding Protein-3.