Two-dimensional metal-organic framework catalyzed chemiluminescent reaction for alpha-glucosidase inhibitor screening

α-Glucosidase inhibitors (AGIs) are oral antidiabetic drugs used in the treatment of type Ⅱ diabetes. It is integral to establish methods for AGIs screening. For the detection of α-glucosidase (α-Glu) activity and screening of AGIs, a chemiluminescence (CL) platform was established based on cascade enzymatic reactions. Firstly, the catalytic activity of a two-dimensional (2D) metal-organic framework (MOF) with iron as central metal atoms and 1,3,5-benzene tricarboxylic acid as a ligand (denoted as 2D Fe-BTC) in the luminol-hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) CL reaction were studied. Mechanism studies showed that the Fe-BTC may react with H2O2 to produce ·OH and act as catalase to facilitate the decomposition of H2O2 to produce O2, thus showing good catalytic activity in the luminol-H2O2 CL reaction. The proposed luminol-H2O2-Fe-BTC CL system exhibited an outstanding response to glucose with the aid of glucose oxidase (GOx). The luminol-GOx-Fe-BTC system showed a detection linear range from 50 nM to 10 μM with a detection limit (LOD) of 3.62 nM for glucose detection. Then, the luminol-H2O2-Fe-BTC CL system was applied to the detection of α-glucosidase (α-Glu) activity and screening of AGIs based on cascade enzymatic reactions using acarbose and voglibose as model drugs. The IC50 of acarbose and voglibose was 7.39 μM and 1.89 mM, respectively.