The
screening method for α-glucosidase (α-Glu) inhibitors
plays a crucial role in the development of antidiabetic drugs. This
study introduces cerium-based metal–organic framework (Ce-MOF)
nanocrystals for the highly sensitive colorimetric detection of α-Glu
inhibitors. The synthesized Ce-MOF nanocrystals exhibited excellent
oxidase-like activity, efficiently catalyzing the oxidation of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine
(TMB) to generate a blue product (oxTMB) with a strong absorption
peak at 652 nm, enabling quantitative analysis using spectroscopic
techniques. Notably, hydroquinone (HQ) can reduce the blue oxTMB to
the colorless TMB. Specifically, α-Glu can hydrolyze α-arbutin
to generate HQ, which subsequently reduces the oxidase activity of
Ce-MOF. However, the addition of α-Glu inhibitors in the system
limited the production of HQ, thereby maintaining the oxidase-like
activity stability of Ce-MOF. Leveraging this mechanism, a screening
method for α-Glu inhibitors was developed. This method overcomes
the limitations of the conventional p-nitrophenyl-α-d-glucopyranoside (p-NPG) assay and effectively
avoids potential interference from hydrogen peroxide introduced by
peroxidase-like nanomaterials, significantly enhancing the detection
sensitivity. The reliability and accuracy of this method were validated,
demonstrating the highly sensitive determination of acarbose with
an IC50 value of 7.04 μM and a detection limit of
3.2 nM. Moreover, this method has been successfully applied to screen
potential α-Glu inhibitors from natural flavonoid compounds.