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Toward potent α-glucosidase inhibitors based on xanthones: a closer look into the structure-activity correlations
Gai-Li Li1, Jia-Yun He, Aiqin Zhang
1School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, PR China.
Abstract:
A series of novel xanthone derivatives 6-16 having non-coplanar and flexible structures were synthesized as potent α-glucosidase inhibitors. Biological evaluation indicated that compounds 6-12 bearing one or two naphthol moieties exhibited up to 30-fold enhanced activities compared with their corresponding parent compounds 2-5, whereas compounds 13-16 bearing one dihydroxylnaphthalenyl group showed decreased activities compared with their corresponding analogs 6-9 having one naphthol group. Among them, compounds 7-8, 10-12 and 15 were more active than 1-deoxynojirimycin, a well-known inhibitor for α-glucosidase. The structure-activity correlations suggested that inhibiting of α-glucosidase was a result of multiple interactions with the enzyme, including π-stacking, hydrophobic effect and conformational flexibility due to the structural non-coplanarity. In addition, compounds 4, 8 and 15 showed non-competitive inhibition.
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