Green Synthesized Silver-Doped Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles: Molecular Docking, Antimicrobial & Insecticidal Activities

Structural and morphological analysis confirmed cubic crystalline structures with average particle sizes of approximately 24.3 nm for CdS and 22.8 nm for Ag-CdS. FTIR analysis indicated that the nanoparticles were capped and stabilized by plant polyphenols and flavonoids, with Ag-CdS displaying additional peaks at 2176–2017 cm⁻¹ corresponding to alkyne and nitrile interactions.

Ag-CdS had antimicrobial activity against E. coli, S. aureus, and C. albicans, and exhibited strong insecticidal activity against M. persicae, achieving over 96% mortality at 10 ppm after 72 hours. Cytotoxicity on human dermal fibroblasts showed that Ag-CdS was less toxic than CdS, maintaining cell viability above 70% at concentrations below 7.81 μg/mL. Molecular docking suggested that the antibacterial activity of Ag-CdS could be due the effective binding to TagF polymerase of Staphylococcus aureus and the AcrAB-TolC efflux pump of Escherichia coli, with docking scores of –6.06 kcal/mol and –6.07 kcal/mol, respectively.