Natural products have played an important role in treating and preventing human diseases.1) An analysis of the origin of the drugs that were launched in the last twenty-five years showed that both natural products and semi-synthetic compounds, derived from natural origin, comprised 34% of all new chemical entities, while 18% of them were synthetic mimics of natural compounds.2) Therefore, natural products are considered important sources for new drugs or lead optimization.2,3) The structural diversity of natural products combined with the fact that they were elaborated within living systems render them more "drug-like" than totally synthetic molecules.
4-7)Papaverine (Fig. 1A) is a prominent member of isoquinoline alkaloids isolated from opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.).8) It exhibits non-selective smooth muscle relaxant effects, which prompted its widespread clinical use in the treatment of vasospasmic diseases.9-11) Papaverine increases the unidirectional K ϩ influx into muscles causing vasodilatation and muscle relaxant effects. The K ϩ flux is associated with increases in glucose uptake which could be one of the causes of hypoglycemia associated with papaverine use.
12)In a recent publication, we revealed a potent inhibitory action for berberine (Fig. 1B), another prominent isoquinoline alkaloid, against the anti-diabetic target human protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (h-PTP 1B).13) The chemical similarity between berberine and papaverine combined with the fact that they share common biosynthetic origin, 14,15) prompted us to evaluate any possible inhibitory action of papaverine against h-PTP 1B. Furthermore, several reports have indicated that opiates, including papaverine, possess significant hypoglycemic properties. 16,17) The hypoglycemic mechanism of opiates is still uncertain. Furthermore, the hypoglycemic effect of papaverine is not well characterized using in vivo animal models.h-PTP 1B, a cytosolic non-receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase, has been implicated in the progression of diabetes because it acts as negative regulator of insulin signal transduction. h-PTP 1B directly catalyzes the dephosphorylation of cellular substrates of the insulin receptor kinase resulting in a down-regulation of insulin action. [18][19][20][21] Mice lacking functional h-PTP 1B showed enhanced tyrosine kinase activity and increased sensitivity to insulin. 22) In another animalbased approach, treatment with anti-sense oligonucleotide specific for h-PTP 1B resulted in normalization of blood glucose and insulin levels in animal models of type 2 diabetes.
23)Accordingly, h-PTP 1B inhibitors could increase insulin receptor tyrosine phosphorylation, mimic cellular and in vivo actions of insulin, and lower plasma glucose levels in diabetic animal models. [24][25][26][27] The current project commenced by computer-aided docking simulations to probe potential binding interactions within papaverine/h-PTP 1B complex. Subsequently, we validated our theoretical findings in vitro and in vivo. The structural similarity between papa...