In vitro anti-diabetic activity and molecular docking studies of Amaranthus cruentus, Amaranthus hybridus and isolated compounds
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Amaranthus species are traditional leafy vegetable also reputed for their potential in managing metabolic disorders, including diabetes. In previous investigations conducted by our group, extracts from Amaranthus cruentus and Amaranthus hybridus, along with isolated compounds, exhibited strong α-glucosidase enzyme and moderate α-amylase inhibition in vitro. METHODS: The present study evaluated the antidiabetic effects of extracts and isolated compounds on C3A hepatocytes and L6 myoblasts. In addition, to elucidate the potential molecular mechanisms behind the observed enzymatic inhibition, we conducted docking studies of the isolated compounds against α-glucosidase and α-amylase. The finely powdered leaf samples were mixed with methanol and extracted using a cold maceration process. Three compounds were obtained from the aerial sections of the plant material using silica gel chromatography. Glucose metabolism of the extracts and the isolated compounds was carried out using L6 myoblasts and C3A cells. RESULTS: The plant extracts of A. cruentus and A. hybridus and isolated compounds; palmitic acid and α-spinasterol, were found to stimulate glucose uptake in L6 myoblasts and C3A cells at 31.25 µg/mL, A. cruentus and A. hybridus stimulated glucose uptake by 15.67% and 15.95%, respectively, while insulin (10 µg/mL) boosted glucose uptake by 27.1% in L6 myoblasts, although their mechanisms of action remained unclear. Palmitic acid and α-spinasterol enhanced glucose uptake in L6 myoblasts by 28.88% and 21.61%, respectively. After 48 h of pre-treatment, only α-spinasterol showed a significant increase in glucose absorption (56.82%) in L6 myoblasts at a treatment dose of 62.5 µg/mL, while insulin showed a glucose uptake of 78.02%. A. hybridus demonstrated significant glucose uptake (20.86%) in C3A hepatocytes after 24 h of pre-treatment at a dosage of 15.63 µg/mL, in contrast to insulin, which enhanced glucose uptake by 34.8% at 10 µg/mL. Compared to acarbose with a binding affinity of -7.7 Kcal/mol, palmitic acid, α-spinasterol and pheophorbide A-methyl ester showed the binding affinities of -5.7 Kcal/mol, -7.6 Kcal/mol and - 7.8 Kcal/mol respectively, on α-glucosidase. Acarbose showed a comparable binding affinity of -6 Kcal/mol to those of pheophorbide A-methyl ester and α-spinasterol, which showed the binding scores of -6.7 Kcal/mol and - 6.8 Kcal/mol, respectively. CONCLUSION: This study validates A. cruentus and A. hybridus's traditional use for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. Future studies will investigate the underlying mechanisms by which the extracts and compounds enhance glucose uptake in L6 myoblasts and C3A hepatocytes. Additionally, to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the antidiabetic potential of the Amaranthus extracts and compounds, in vivo experiments using appropriate animal models will be conducted.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".