Novel sulfonamide derivatives as multitarget antidiabetic agents: design, synthesis, and biological evaluation

A series of new sulfonamide derivatives connected through an imine linker to five or seven membered heterocycles were designed and synthesized. All synthesized derivatives were characterized using a variety of spectroscopic methods, including IR, 1HNMR, and 13CNMR. In vitro alpha-glucosidase and alpha-amylase inhibition activities, as well as glucose uptake were assessed for each of the synthesized compounds. Four sulfonamide derivatives namely 3a, 3b, 3h and 6 showed excellent inhibitory potential against alpha-glucosidase with IC50 values of 19.39, 25.12, 25.57 and 22.02 mu M, respectively. They were 1.05- to 1.39-fold more potent than acarbose. Sulfonamide derivatives 3g, 3i and 7 (EC50 values of 1.29, 21.38 and 19.03 mu M, respectively) exhibited significant glucose uptake activity that were 1.62- to 27-fold more potent than berberine. Both alpha-glucosidase protein (PDB: 2QMJ) and alpha-amylase (PDB: 1XCW) complexed with acarbose were adopted for docking investigations for the most active synthesized compounds. The docked compounds were able to inhabit the same space as the acarviosin ring of acarbose. The docking of the most active compounds showed an analogous binding with the active site of alpha-glucosidase as acarbose. The superior activity of the synthesized compounds against alpha-glucosidase enzyme than alpha-amylase enzyme can be rationalized by the weak interaction with the alpha-amylase. The physiochemical parameters of all synthesized compounds were aligned with Lipinski's rule of five. A series of new sulfonamide derivatives connected through an imine linker to five or seven membered heterocycles were designed and synthesized.