Conclusion
In the present study, we integrated a series of methods to conduct a network pharmacology analysis of the theory and biological mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine treating COVID-19. We conclude that Chinese herbal medicine may treat covid-19 by regulating the cell cycle and immune-related pathways. The five key compounds quercetin, luteolin, kaempferol, wogonin, and naringenin which are origin from ephedra, honeysuckle, forsythia and grass fruit have the functions of regulating various biological processes such as inflammation, immunity, apoptosis, and blood coagulation, and exhibited the characteristics of bidirectional regulation. And importantly, the five compounds showed good docking effects with covid-19. As a common target gene of three different prescriptions, Rb1 demonstrated the biological essence of Chinese Medicine treatment of the same disease. In addition, compounds from one same herb showed similar or different regulatory pathways, suggesting the role of TCM prescriptions in regulating the overall functions of pathogens and the host environment. To sum up, this study provided the biological mechanism of TCM for the treatment of covid-19, and found that five compounds showed the potential to be developed into targeted drugs for COVID-19.
Author Contributions: Conceptualization and writing: L.L; Network pharmacology analysis: J.CH; Supervision L.F. Lixing Liu and Jinyuan Chang contributed equally in this study.
Ethics approval and consent to participate: Not applicable.
Funding: This study was funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Grant (Grant number: 2019M650575) ; Beijing Science and Technology Commission ”Research and Development of Ten Diseases and Ten Drugs” Project (Grant number: Z171100001717017).
Acknowledgments: Thanks to the medical workers all over the world for their sacrifices and contributions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.