Mercaptobenzimidazole-Based 1,3-Thaizolidin-4-ones as Antidiabetic Agents: Synthesis, In Vitro alpha-Glucosidase Inhibition Activity, and Molecular Docking Studies

In this research work, we have focused our efforts to synthesize a series of 2-mercaptobenzimidazole-based 1,3-thiazolidin-4-ones (5-24) following a multistep reaction strategy and characterization of the synthesized derivatives with the help of various spectroscopic techniques. To find the antidiabetic potentials of the synthesized compounds (5-24), in vitro alphaglucosidase inhibitory activity was performed using acarbose (IC50 = 873 +/- 1.2 mu M) as the reference standard. The results of the antidiabetic assay were very encouraging because compounds 5, 8, and 14 showed excellent inhibitions with IC50 values of 5.22 +/- 0.14, 5.69 +/- 0.10, and 10.20 +/- 0.12 mu M, respectively. The experimental results of anti-alpha-glucosidase activity prompted us to investigate and propose a possible mechanism of how the active molecules will interact with the target enzyme. For this purpose, molecular docking with the AutoDock Vina (an open-source and reliable docking platform) gave us an insight into the binding interactions of the active compounds to different amino acid residues of the enzyme.