Effect of Eurotium cristatum fermentation on the α-glucosidase inhibitory activity of mulberry leaves flavonoid extract

Abstract

Diabetes has become a global chronic disease and alpha-glucosidase inhibitors is an effective ways of treating it. Flavonoids are a group of substances in mulberry leaves that have α-glucosidase inhibitory properties and can reduce blood glucose concentrations effectively. In this paper, flavonoids from mulberry leaves fermented by Eurotium cristatum CY-1 will be used to investigate their inhibitory properties on α-glucosidase. The results indicated that the fermentation would increase the total flavonoid content of mulberry leaves by 196.7%. Meanwhile, the α-glucosidase inhibition efficiency of flavonoids extracted from the fermented mulberry leaves was also enhanced under the same concentration. The IC50 values of the flavonoids extracted from 8 d fermented mulberry leaves and the unfermented mulberry leaf was 4.14 μg/mL and 10.26 μg/mL, respectively. This article will provide a reference for using microbial fermentation to enrich active ingredients of functional Chinese medicine herbs.