Research Progress on the Preparation of Natural α-Glucosidase Inhibitors

Abstract

Diabetes is one of the major diseases that seriously affect human life and health, especially as it can cause a variety of complications such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetic nephropathy, and neurological diseases, imposing a heavy burden on the quality of life and economy of patients. Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors (AGIs) are important drugs for treating diabetes because they can directly act on α-glucosidase (AG) to decompose carbohydrates in food into glucose, so as to achieve targeted regulation of blood sugar levels. Commonly used clinical drugs, such as acarbose, often have side effects such as gastrointestinal adverse reactions and liver function damage during long-term use. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop new AGIs with higher efficiency and lower side effects. Researches on natural AGIs have gained global attention in recent years, since they have the advantages of wide availability, relatively more safety and low side effects. Typically, the sources of natural AGIs include extracting from natural plants or generating by microbial fermentation and enzymatic catalysis. This article reviewed the major advancements in both areas in recent years, including the utilization of green solvent extraction techniques and novel screening and separation methods for enhancing the efficiency of extraction and screening of natural AGIs substances, the application of biotechnologies for screening of microorganisms with natural AGIs from both microbial and food sources for expanding the resource pool of natural AGIs.