Mercaptobenzimidazole-Based 1,3-Thaizolidin-4-ones as Antidiabetic Agents: Synthesis, In Vitro α-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 () 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 (), in vitro alpha-glucosidase inhibitory activity was performed using acarbose (IC = 873 ± 1.2 μM) as the reference standard. The results of the antidiabetic assay were very encouraging because compounds , , and showed excellent inhibitions with IC values of 5.22 ± 0.14, 5.69 ± 0.10, and 10.20 ± 0.12 μM, 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.