The current objective of the study is to evaluate the α-amylase inhibitory activity of butein and tricetin using in silico docking studies. In this perspective, butein and tricetin ligands were prepared for the docking evaluation. Acarbose, a known α-amylase inhibitor was used as the standard. In silico docking studies were carried out using recent version of AutoDock 4.2, which has the basic principle of Lamarckian genetic algorithm. Three important docking evaluation parameters such as binding energy, inhibition constant and intermolecular energy were determined for the selected ligands. These results showed that all the selected flavonoids showed binding energy ranging between - 6.73 kcal/mol to -6.63 kcal/mol when compared with that of the standard (-2.94 kcal/mol). Intermolecular energy (- 8.52 kcal/mol to -8.72 kcal/mol) and inhibition constant (11.66 μM to 13.86 μM) of the ligands also coincide with the binding energy. Butein and tricetin contributed excellent α-amylase inhibitory activity because of its structural parameters. These molecular docking analyses of butein and tricetin could lead to the further development to identify the potent α-amylase inhibitors for the treatment of diabetes.
