Synthesis, Characterization, and Evaluation of Antifungal Activity of 1‑Butyl-3-hexyl‑1H‑imidazol-2(3H)‑selenone by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy

In the present research work, a selenium N-heterocyclic carbene (Se–NHC) complex/adduct was synthesized and characterized by using different analytical methods including FT-IR, 1HNMR, and 13CNMR. The antifungal activity of the Se–NHC complex against Aspergillus flavus (A. flavus) fungus was investigated with disc diffusion assay. Moreover, the biochemical changes occurring in this fungus due to exposure of different concentrations of the in-house synthesized compound are characterized by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and are illustrated in the form of SERS spectral peaks. SERS analysis yields valuable information about the probable mechanisms responsible for the antifungal effects of the Se–NHC complex. As demonstrated by the SERS spectra, this Se–NHC complex caused denaturation and conformational changes in the proteins as well as decomposition of the fungal cell membrane. The SERS spectra were analyzed using two chemometric tools such as principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least-squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The fungal samples’ SERS spectra were differentiated using PCA, while various groups of spectra were discriminated with ultrahigh sensitivity (98%), high specificity (99.7%), accuracy (100%), and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (87%) using PLS-DA.