The present invention provides a compound of formula I or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof, wherein R1 is selected from hydroxyl, R2 is selected from
hydrogen and hydroxyl, R3 is selected from O-β-DGlc, O-β-DGlc-(2-1)-α-L-Rha, and methyl, R4 is selected from methyl, O-β-DGlc, and O-β-DGlc-(2-1)-α-L-Rha, R5 is selected from
hydroxymethyl,
hydrogen, and CH2O-β-DGlc, R6 is selected from methyl and
hydroxymethyl, R7 is selected from methyl and
hydroxymethyl, and R8 is selected from hydroxyl and O-β-DGlc-(2-1)-α-L-Rha. The beneficial effects of this invention are that it has obtained a new compound with α-
glucosidase inhibitory activity that has not been reported in the literature, and the structure of the compound has been determined. The compound has good α-
glucosidase inhibitory activity and can be formulated into a hypoglycemic
drug suitable for clinical use. It can also be used as a
lead compound for further research on its structure-activity relationship, to synthesize a series of
hypoglycemic drugs and
drug combinations. Furthermore, it can be used as an indicator component for the
quality control of
Hedyotis diffusa herbal material and its preparations, breaking through the current
bottleneck in the research and development of
Hedyotis diffusa.