Today's era and lifestyle have led to a quick rise in cases of diabetes.
Diabetes mellitus (DM) has risen to the top of the list of serious diseases and stems from different health disorders. Human
pancreatic alpha-amylase (HPA)
enzyme plays a critical role in the digestion of
carbohydrates, and inhibitors of
alpha-amylase have been investigated as a way to slow the absorption of
carbohydrates and reduce postprandial (after meal)
hyperglycemia in patients with diabetes. Recently algal derivatives have been studied for their potential as a new
drug against diabetes and other diseases. The study is aimed to find active biochemical compounds from the methanolic extract of Chlorella vulgaris. The in vitro studies were carried out and the results revealed that methanolic extract from C. vulgaris showed abundant inhibition efficacy of the α-
amylase (IC50 of about 2.66 µg/mL) compared to
acarbose (IC50 of about 2.85 µg/mL), a standard, commercial inhibitor. All the bioactive compounds from the methanolic extract were identified from the GCMS study and considered for in silico evaluation. Out of 14 bioactive compounds from GCMS, compound C3 showed higher docking energy (-8.3 kcal/mol) compared to other compounds. Subsequently, the comparative molecular dynamic simulation of apo and
ligand-bound (compound C3 and
acarbose) α-
amylase complexes showed overall structural stability for compound C3 at the active site of α-
amylase from various MD analyses. Hence, we believe, the bioactive compounds identified from GCMS may assist in diabetic
therapeutics. Moreover, the compound C3 identified in this study could be a potential
antidiabetic therapeutic inhibitor.Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.