Synthesis of N-heterocyclic carbene-based silver complexes and their antimicrobial properties against bacteria and fungi

Abstract

N-Heterocyclic carbene-based silver complexes (Ag-NHCs) have been widely used as organometallic drug candidates in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry research due to their low toxicity. Due to the success of Ag-NHCs in biological applications, interest in the synthesis and applications of such compounds is increasing rapidly. Therefore, in this study, ten Ag-NHC complexes containing benzimidazol-2-ylidene ligand were synthesized and characterized by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, FT-IR spectroscopies and elemental analyses. The antimicrobial activity of Ag-NHCs was tested against some standard culture collections of Gram-negative, Gram-positive bacterial strains and fungal strains, which are the most frequently isolated among the society and hospital acquired infectious microorganisms as potential metallopharmaceutical agents. The Ag-NHC complexes showed effective antimicrobial activity against microorganisms with MIC values between 6.25 and 100 μg/mL.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• N-Heterocyclic carbene
• benzimidazol-2-ylidene
• silver
• antimicrobial activity
• metallodrugs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.