Nursing

Quantum mechanics

Polyphenol

Luteolin

Acarbose

Amylase

Rutin

Active site

Fluorescence spectroscopy

Hesperetin

Biochemistry

Docking (animal)

Epigallocatechin gallate

Stereochemistry

Catechin

Physics

Binding site

Antioxidant

Enzyme

Fluorescence

Flavonoid

Medicine

Chemistry

Quercetin

Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy

Flavonoids are recognized to regulate animals' food digestion processes trough interaction with digestive enzymes. The binding capacity of hesperetin (HES), luteolin (LUT), quercetin (QUE), catechin (CAT) and rutin (RUT) with pancreatic α-amylase were evaluated, using UV-Vis spectroscopy, fluorescence and molecular docking. Using p-nitrophenyl-α-d-maltopentoside (pNPG5) as substrate analog, LUT showed the best inhibitory capacity, even better than that of the positive control, acarbose (ACA). A mixed-type inhibition was observed for HES, LUT and QUE, a competitive-type for ACA, while no inhibition was observed with CAT and RUT. In agreement with kinetic results, α-amylase presented a higher affinity for LUT, when analyzed by fluorescence quenching. The binding of flavonoids to amylase followed a static mechanism, where the binding of one flavonoid per enzyme molecule was observed. Docking analysis showed that flavonoids bound near to enzyme active site, while ACA bound in another site behind the catalytic triad. Extrinsic fluorescence analysis, together with docking analysis pointed out that hydrophobic interactions regulated the flavonoid-α-amylase interactions. The present study provides evidence to understand the relationship of flavonoids structure with their inhibition mechanism.

Inhibition of α-amylase by flavonoids: Structure activity relationship (SAR)