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

These nanoparticles were characterized using UV–Vis spectrophotometry, XRD, TEM, SEM, DLS, and zeta potential analysis. 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. In conclusion, these findings suggest that green synthesized Ag-CdS nanoparticles are effective antimicrobial and insecticidal agents with low human cytotoxicity.