Antimicrobial activity, inhibition of biofilm formation, and molecular docking study of novel Ag-NHC complexes

Abstract

In this study, we reported the synthesis of a new series of Silver(I)-N-heterocyclic carbene complexes which were obtained from the corresponding new N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) precursors. All new compounds were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, LC-MS, 1 H NMR, and 13 C{ 1 H} NMR spectroscopy. These new N-heterocyclic carbene precursors and Ag(I)-NHC complexes were evaluated for their antibacterial, antifungal, and antibiofilm activities. The biological activities of synthesized products were compared with standard drugs. All compounds have moderate antibacterial and antibiofilm activities. In particular, while compound 2a was found to be the best inhibitor of E. coli biofilms, while compound 2d inhibited C. albicans biofilm at the highest rate. All the compounds were also analyzed by molecular docking methods with the certain target molecules.