Abstract:
Psidium guajava L. (guava) leaves have demonstrated their in vitro and in vivo effect against
diabetes mellitus (DM). However, there is a lack of literature concerning the effect of the individual
phenolic compounds present in the leaves in DM disease. The aim of the present work was to identify
the individual compounds in Spanish guava leaves and their potential contribution to the observed
anti-diabetic effect. Seventy-three phenolic compounds were identified from an 80% ethanol extract
of guava leaves by high performance liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization and
quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The potential anti-diabetic activity of each compound
was evaluated with the DIA-DB web server that uses a docking and molecular shape similarity
approach. The DIA-DB web server revealed that aldose reductase was the target protein with
heterogeneous affinity for compounds naringenin, avicularin, guaijaverin, quercetin, ellagic acid,
morin, catechin and guavinoside C. Naringenin exhibited the highest number of interactions with
target proteins dipeptidyl peptidase-4, hydroxysteroid 11-beta dehydrogenase 1, aldose reductase
and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor. Compounds catechin, quercetin and naringenin
displayed similarities with the known antidiabetic drug tolrestat. In conclusion, the computational
workflow showed that guava leaves contain several compounds acting in the DM mechanism by
interacting with specific DM protein targets.
