Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) lectin exhibit inhibition of ACE-I, α-amylase and α-glucosidase activity.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes and hypertension are the major health concern and is alleged to be of epidemic proportions. This has made it a numero uno subject at various levels of investigation. Glucosidase inhibitor provides the reasonable option in treatment of diabetes mellitus (DM) as it specifically target post prandial hyperglycemia. The angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) plays an important role in hypertension. Therefore, inhibition of ACE in treatment of elevated blood pressure attracts special interest of the scientific community. Chickpea is a food legume and seeds contain carbohydrate binding protein- a lectin. Some of the biological properties of this lectin have hitherto to be fully elucidated.

METHOD: Purified by ion exchange chromatography, chickpea lectin was tested for in vitro antioxidant, ACE-I inhibitory and anti-diabetic characteristic.

RESULT: Lectin shows characteristic which appears to be an improvement over the synthetic drugs like acarbose (oral anti-diabetic drug) and captopril (standard antihypertensive drug) when, their IC50 values are compared. Lectin significantly inhibited α-glucosidase and α-amylase in a concentration dependent manner with IC50 values of 85.41 ± 1.21 µg/ml and 65.05 ± 1.2 µg/ml compared to acarbose having IC50 70.20 ± 0.47 value of µg/ml and 50.52 ± 1.01 µg/ml respectively. β-Carotene bleaching assay showed antioxidant activity of lectin (72.3%) to be as active as Butylated hydroxylanisole (BHA). In addition, lectin demonstrated inhibition against ACE-I with IC50 value of 57.43 ± 1.20 µg/ml compared to captopril.

CONCLUSION: Lectin demonstrated its antioxidant character, ACE-I inhibition and significantly inhibitory for α-glucosidase and α-amylase seems to qualify as an anti-hyperglycemic therapeutic molecule. The biological effects of chickpea lectin display potential for reducing parameters of medically debilitating conditions. These characteristics however, needs to be established under in vivo systems too viz. animals through to humans.