In
the current study, two organic salts (1 and 2) are synthesized, and then crystalline structures
are characterized
by FTIR, UV spectroscopy, and X-ray crystallographic studies. The
organic salts 1 and 2 are optimized at the
M06/6-311G(d,p)level of theory and
further utilized for analysis of natural bond orbitals (NBOs), natural
population, frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs), and global reactivity
parameters, which confirmed the stability of the studied compounds
and charge transfer phenomenon in the studied compounds. The studies
further revealed that 1 and 2 are more stable
than 3. The lowest energy merged monomer–coformer
conformations were docked as flexible ligands with rigid fungal proteins
and DNA receptors. The stagnant binding of the monomer through two
H bonds with protein was observed for ligands 1 and 3 while different pattern was found with 2. The
coformers formed a single H bond with the active site in 2 and 3 and a single pi–arene H interaction in 1. The two-point ligand–receptor interactions hooked
the monomer between DNA base pairs for partial intercalation; pi stacking
with additive hydrogen bonding with the base pair led to a strong
benzimidazole interaction in 1 and 2, whereas
ethylene diamine formed weak H bonding. Thus, the molecular docking
predicted that the coformer exhibited DNA intercalation reinforced
by its salt formation with benzimidazole 1 and methyl
benzimidazole 2. Antioxidant studies depicted that 3 has a higher IC50 value than that of 2,4-D and
also the largest value among the studied compounds, whereas 2 showed the lowest value among the studied compounds.