Quercetin은 flavonoid 계통의 물질로서 자연계에서 채소나 과일에 매우 흔하다. 또한 인체에서는 radical scavenger로서 신체항상성 뿐만 아니라 직장암의 예방에도 중요한 역할을 한다. Glucosidase를 포함한 glycosidase는 많은 종류의 대사성 질환에 관련이 있다. 유용한 $alpha$-glucosidase 저해제를 스크리닝 하던 중 chemical library로부터 quercetin을 선별하였다. Quercetin은 $alpha$-glucosidase에 가역적으로, 느리게 결합하며, 비경쟁적인 저해제인데, $6.3 imes10^{-8}$ M의 Ki값을 가진다. 이러한 결과는 비록 기전 연구가 더 필요하지만, quercetin이 당뇨병과 같은 퇴행성 질환을 치료할 수 있다는 잠재성을 보여주는 것이다.
Quercetin is a flavonoid molecule that is known to tie in various sources of natural products such as vegetables and fruits. It has been proven that quercetin plays a crucial role in the prevention of colon cancer as well as homeostasis as radical scavenger in human body. It is also well-known that glycosidases, including $alpha$-glucosidase, are involved in a variety of degenerative metabolic disorders. In the course of screening useful $alpha$-glucosidase inhibitors, we screened out quercetin as a $alpha$-glucosidase inhibitor from chemical libraries. Quercetin was shown to be a reversible, slow-binding, and noncompetitive inhibitor of yeast a-glucosidase with a K$_i$ value of $6.3 imes10^{-8}$ M when it was included with an enzyme mixture. Together, these results show that quercetin has potential in treating disorders including diabetes, although the further mechanistic study is needed.
