Interaction properties of biosynthesized cadmium sulphide quantum dots with human serum albumin: further investigation of antibacterial activities and sensing applications

The synthesis of small‐sized quantum dots (QDs) (1–10 nm) via the green route has garnered great interest regarding their prospective use in many biological applications (diagnosis, drug delivery and in vivo sensing); this is difficult to achieve using chemical synthesis methods, which produce larger size QD particles and also require hazardous reagents. Here, we synthesized biogenic cadmium sulphide (CdS) QDs using green tea extract as the reducing agent to produce particles that were homogeneous and a smaller size of 2–4 nm. We also elucidated the (a) protein binding, (b) antibacterial use and (c) sensing applications of biogenic CdS QDs in this present work. The biosynthesized CdS QDs were found to have extensive antibacterial activity against both Gram‐negative Escherichia coli and Gram‐positive Enterococcus faecalis bacterial strains. The introduction of QDs in biological medium can lead to the formation of protein–QD complexes; therefore we investigated the binding interaction of CdS QDs with the carrier protein human serum albumin (HSA) in vitro. The synthesized CdS QDs quenched the intrinsic fluorescence of HSA through a static quenching mechanism and the binding constant (Kb) was in the order of 104 M−1. It was also observed that the presence of biogenic CdS QDs affected the HSA–ligand interactions in vitro. The synthesized CdS made highly effective sensors for tetracycline, rifampicin, and bilirubin with limit of detection (LOD) values of 99, 141 and 29 ng/ml, respectively. Here, we have reported the green tea extract‐mediated biogenic synthesis of CdS–GT QDs and characterized these using multispectroscopic techniques. Furthermore, we have explored the different biological activities of the synthesized CdS–GT QDs, namely (1) interaction with carrier protein human serum albumin (HSA), (2) antibacterial activity, and (3) biosensing of tetracycline, rifampicin, and bilirubin.