Organocatalyzed Novel Synthetic Methodology for Highly Functionalized Piperidines as Potent α-Glucosidase Inhibitors

An efficient atom-economic one-pot synthesis of highly functionalized piperidines was achieved by catalytic multicomponent reaction. A wide range of heterogeneous and homogenous catalysts were explored; however, promising results were achieved when a β-keto-ester was reacted with selected aromatic aldehydes and anilines by using N-acetyl glycine (NAG) as catalyst. The implication of this methodology is straightforward since the products were precipitated out from the reaction solution, eliminating the need of column chromatography purifications. The synthesized piperidines were screened against α-glucosidase inhibition, which revealed that these compounds were very active inhibitors, and some of the compounds showed even better inhibition than the reference compound, at low micromolar concentrations. In silico molecular modeling was also performed to investigate the binding modes of the compounds into the active sites of the target protein.