Curcumin derivatives as potential antidiabetic medicines: α-glucosidase and α-amylase as the target enzymes

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a common metabolic disorder, characterizing by unusually high blood sugar level. One therapeutic strategy to reduce the postprandial hyperglycemia is delaying the absorption of glucose by inhibition of α-glucosidase (α-Gls) and α-amylase (α-Amy). The α-Gls inhibitors such as acarbose, miglitol, voglibose, and emiglitate are currently used as therapeutic medicines for the treatment of diabetic patients with postprandial hyperglycemia. However, the prolonged use of these medicines by the patients could result in development of different side effects such as stomach cramping, vomiting and diarrhea. Therefore, there is still an increased demand for the new and safer antidiabetic medicines. In this study, novel derivatives of curcumin were synthesized and their inhibitory activity against both α-Gls and α-Amy were examined spectroscopically. The curcumin derivatives indicated significant inhibitory properties against α-Gls enzyme. Also, these derivatives demonstrated a week inhibition against α-Amy which is also important in terms of their possibly reduced associated gastrointestinal side effects. The synthetic curcumin derivatives indicated significant antioxidant activity, increasing their therapeutic value when considering that oxidative stress is a pathogenic link between hyperglycemia and development of various diabetic complications. These synthetic compounds were also revealed no significant effect against two bacterial target cells living as the microflora in human intestine. Our study suggests the synthetic curcumin derivatives as potential antidiabetic medicines.

کلیدواژه ها:

α-glucosidase ، α-amylase ، Inhibition ، Antioxidant activity ، Antibacterial activity