Ethiopian coffee (Coffea arabica) improves glucose uptake and modulates metabolic enzyme activities linked to hyperglycemia-induced infertility in isolated rats’ testes

Abstract

The present study evaluated the inhibitory effect of Ethiopian coffee (Coffea arabica) on carbohydrate digestive enzymes and its protective effect against glucose-induced testicular dysfunction using in vitro and in silico study models. Testicular oxidative stress was initiated by co-incubating testocular tissue collected from male Sprague-Dawley rats in glucose solution with different concentrations of Ethiopian coffee aqueous extracts (hot and cold) for 2 h at 37ºC. Glucose-mediated oxidative stress significantly (p < 0.05) depleted reduced glutathione and total glycogen levels while it lowered catalase and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities in the testicular tissue. Concomitantly, this led to elevated malondialdehyde and nitric oxide levels while it also increased glycogen phosphorylase, fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, ATPase, and acetylcholinesterase activities. Treatment with different concentrations of coffee aqueous extracts restored the enzymes’ and markers’ levels and activities. Although both the cold and hot coffee extracts strongly inhibited α-glucosidase and α-amylase enzymes, the former showed better activities. The subjection of the coffee extracts to LC-MS analysis indicated the presence of several compounds, including chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, cafestol, kahweol, caffeine, quinic acid, ferulic acid, and catechol which were further docked with the carbohydrate digestive enzymes. The in silico results displayed that among the various metabolites, chlorogenic acid strongly interacted and had the best binding affinity with α-glucosidase and α-amylase. Our findings implied that Ethiopian coffee may have a preventive effect against glucose-induced testicular damage. These are evidenced by the capacity of the plant product to decrease oxidative stress and protect against testicular dysfunction. Graphical Abstract