Natasha Jaiswal, Swayam P Srivastava, Vikram Bhatia, Akansha Mishra, Amit K Sonkar, Tadigoppula Narender, Arvind K Srivastava and Akhilesh K Tamrakar
Postprandial hyperglycemia is a prominent and early defect in diabetes and regulating blood glucose elevation may attenuate progression towards diabetes associated secondary complications. Here we investigated the alphaglucosidase inhibitory potential of the ethanolic extract of the stem bark of Acacia nilotica (EEAN). The EEAN showed a remarkable alpha-glucosidase inhibitory effect with IC50 value around 8 μg/ml. Kinetic studies revealed that the extract inhibited alpha-glucosidase in competitive manner and caused conformational changes in secondary structure of the enzyme protein. In vivo analysis showed that EEAN significantly suppresses the sucrose-induced postprandial glucose elevation in normal rats and exerts antihyperglycemic effect in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats in a dose-dependent fashion. Further, treatment of diabetic animals after 10 week of STZ-treatment with EEAN (250 mg/ kg) for 21 days, significantly reduced the elevated levels of blood glucose, %HbA1C, urea, uric acid and creatinine, and significantly increased the depressed plasma insulin level. The EEAN also showed inhibitory potential on aldose reductase activity with an IC50 of 7.5 μg/ml. The results suggest that EEAN possess antihyperglycemic activity through inhibition of alpha-glucosidase along with antidiabetogenic effect on polyol pathway through aldose reductase inhibition.