This experiment was conducted to evaluate the Dalbergiella welwitschia alkaloid-rich extracts on liver damage in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Hence, to induce diabetes, 45 mg/kg body weight of streptozotocin was intraperitoneally injected into the Wistar rats. Subsequently, 5 % (w/v) of glucose water was given to the induced animals for 24 h. Thus, the animals (48) were grouped into five groups (n = 8), containing normal control (NC), diabetic control (DC), diabetic rats placed on low (50 mg/kg body weight) and high (100 mg/kg body weight) doses of D. welwitschi alkaloid-rich leaf extracts (i.e. DWL and DWH respectively), and diabetic rats administered 200 mg/kg body weight of metformin (MET). The animals were sacrificed on the 21st day of the experiment, blood and liver were harvested, and different liver damage biomarkers were evaluated. The results obtained demonstrated that diabetic rats administered DWL, DWH and MET significantly (p 0.05) different when compared with NC. Also, diabetic rats administered DWL, DWH and MET revealed a significant (p 0.05) different when compared with NC. In addition, histological examination revealed that diabetic rats placed on DWL, DWH and MET normalized the hepatocytes. Consequently, it can be inferred that alkaloid-rich extracts from D. welwitschi leaf could be helpful in improving liver damage associated with diabetes mellitus rats.
Glucokinase plays an important role in regulating the blood glucose level and serves as an essential therapeutic target in type 2 diabetes management. Entada africana is a medicinal plant and highly rich source of bioactive ligands with the potency to develop new target drugs for glucokinase such as diabetes and obesity. Therefore, the study explored a computational approach to predict identified compounds from Entada africana following its intermolecular interactions with the allosteric binding site of the enzymes. We retrieved the three-dimensional (3D) crystal structure of glucokinase (PDB ID: 4L3Q) from the online protein data bank and prepared it using the Maestro 13.5, Schrödinger Suite 2022-3. The compounds identified were subjected to ADME, docking analysis, pharmacophore modeling, and molecular simulation. The results show the binding potential of the identified ligands to the amino acid residues, thereby suggesting an interaction of the amino acids with the ligand at the binding site of the glucokinase activator through conventional chemical bonds such as hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions. The compatibility of the molecules was highly observed when compared with the standard ligand, thereby leading to structural and functional changes. Therefore, the bioactive components from Entada africana could be a good driver of glucokinase, thereby paving the way for the discovery of therapeutic drugs for the treatment of diabetes and its related complications.