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COVID-19Research Paper|Volume 13, Issue 4|pp 4811—4830

Chemical composition and pharmacological mechanism of ephedra-glycyrrhiza drug pair against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Xiaoling Li1, Qin Qiu2, Mingyue Li3, Haowen Lin4, Shilin Cao5,6, Qu Wang4, Zishi Chen5, Wenhao Jiang5, Wen Zhang7, Yuge Huang8, Hui Luo9, Lianxiang Luo9,10
  • 1Animal Experiment Center of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong, China
  • 2Graduate School of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong, China
  • 3Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
  • 4The First Clinical College of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong, China
  • 5Group of Sustainable Biochemical Engineering, School of Food Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan 528000, Guangdong, China
  • 6Sustainable Biochemical and Biosynthetic Engineering Center, Foshan Wu-Yuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Guangdong Biomedical Industrial Base, Foshan 528000, Guangdong, China
  • 7Aditegen LLC, Jersey, NJ 07310, USA
  • 8Department of Pediatrics, the Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524001, Guangdong, China
  • 9The Marine Biomedical Research Institute, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong, China
  • 10Marine Medical Research Institute of Zhanjiang, Zhanjiang 524023, Guangdong, China
* Equal contribution
Received: August 26, 2020Accepted: November 30, 2020Published: February 13, 2021
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.202622

Copyright: © 2021 Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) had demonstrated effectiveness in the prevention and control of COVID-19. Statistics showed that Ephedra and Glycyrrhiza were frequently used in the treatment of COVID-19. We hypothesized that the Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza drug pair is a potential choice for the treatment of COVID-19. Here, 112 active compounds were identified from Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza via network pharmacology approach. Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza pair enrichment analysis demonstrated that these compounds might participate in the cAMP, PI3K-Akt, JAK-STAT and chemokine signaling pathways, which had a high correlation with respiratory, nervous, blood circulation and digestive system-related diseases. Pathway analysis between Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza and COVID-19 showed that the key targets were TNF-α, IL2, FOS, ALB, and PTGS2. They might control PI3K-Akt signaling pathway to exert immune regulation, organ protection and antiviral effects. Molecular docking results showed that the active compounds from the Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza pair bound well to COVID-19 related targets, including the main protease (Mpro, also called 3CLpro), the spike protein (S protein), and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The Molecular dynamics simulation was analyzed for the stability and flexibility of the complex. In conclusion, our study elucidated the potential pharmacological mechanism of Ephedra-Glycyrrhiza in the treatment of COVID-19 through multiple targets and pathways.