Design, synthesis, and molecular docking studies of diphenylquinoxaline-6-carbohydrazide hybrids as potent α-glucosidase inhibitors

A novel series of diphenylquinoxaline-6-carbohydrazide hybrids 7a–o were rationally designed and synthesized as anti-diabetic agents. All synthesized compounds 7a–o were screened as possible α-glucosidase inhibitors and exhibited good inhibitory activity with IC(50) values in the range of 110.6 ± 6.0 to 453.0 ± 4.7 µM in comparison with acarbose as the positive control (750.0 ± 10.5 µM). An exception in this trend came back to a compound 7k with IC(50) value > 750 µM. Furthermore, the most potent derivative 7e bearing 3-fluorophenyl moiety was further explored by kinetic studies and showed the competitive type of inhibition. Additionally, the molecular docking of all derivatives was performed to get an insight into the binding mode of these derivatives within the active site of the enzyme. In silico assessments exhibited that 7e was well occupied in the binding pocket of the enzyme through favorable interactions with residues, correlating to the experimental results. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13065-022-00848-4.