Abstract: Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors (AGI) are widely used in the treatment of diabetes as monotherapy and additional therapy,which play the therapeutic effect by delaying the hydrolysis and absorption of carbohydrates in the intestinal tract and effectively controlling postprandial blood glucose concentration.Alphaglucosidase inhibitors have a variety of effects such as controlling postprandial blood glucose concentration,protecting the function of islet cell and improving the diabetic complications.In recent 10 years,the screening methods of alpha-glucosidase inhibitors have developed rapidly,a variety of new technologies have been developed and applied for screening alpha-glucosidase inhibitors from natural resources.Searching for new alphaglucosidase inhibitors from the natural resources has become a research focus of prevention and control of diabetes nowadays.In the paper,the hypoglycemic mechanism,function characteristics and screening model of alpha-glucosidase inhibitors from natural resources were summarized.Different models and methods for screening alpha-glucosidase inhibitors from the natural resources both domestic and abroad in the recent years were compared.The characteristics of these methods,the existing problems and research ideas were discussed.The work may provide the basis for searching and discovering the natural alphaglucosidase inhibitors.

Key words: alpha-glucosidase inhibitors, screening methods