Isolation and screening of glucosidase inhibitors from Chinese medicines

Objective: To search for glucosidase inhibitors from Chinese medicines. Methods: Six kinds of widely-used Chinese medicines with the activity of decreasing blood glucose were prepared by the process of boiling, condensing, precipitating, exchanging with resins and rinsing. In vitro glucosidase inhibitory activities were examined by photometric bioassay derived from rats, yeast and almond of all the Chinese medicine extracts. Diabetic ICR mice models were established by intraperitoneal injection of STZ (200 mg/kg). To investigate the in vivo effect of lowering blood glucose, the mouse blood glucose level was assayed at 30 min after being given 2.5 g/kg starch and acarbose or varied concentrations of different constituents of some Chinese medicines by stomach tube. Results: The constituents of Sangye, Sangzhi, Sangbaipi, Dihuang and Yuzhu showed potent inhibitory activities against glucosidase. Furthermore, the first kind of constituents was proved to be beneficial in reducing blood glucose by in vivo glucose tolerance experiments. Conclusion: The constituents of Chinese medicines with reducing blood glucose effect have been discovered, thus providing a clue to novel drugs.