Investigating the active compounds and mechanism of HuaShi XuanFei formula for prevention and treatment of COVID-19 based on network pharmacology and molecular docking analysis

Abstract

Graphic abstract Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has exerted positive effects in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. HuaShi XuanFei Formula (HSXFF) was developed to treat patients with mild and general COVID-19 in Zhejiang Province, China. The present study seeks to explore its potentially active compounds and pharmacological mechanisms against COVID-19 based on network pharmacology, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. All components of HSXFF were harvested from the pharmacology database of the TCMSP system. COVID-19-related targets were retrieved from using OMIM and GeneCards databases. The herb-compound-targets network was constructed by Cytoscape. The target protein–protein interaction (PPI) network, Gene Ontology (GO), and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were performed to discover the potential key target genes and mechanism. The main active compounds of HSXFF were docked with 3C-like (3CL) protease hydrolase and angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The MD simulation confirmed the binding stability of docking results. The herbs-targets network mainly contained 52 compounds and 70 corresponding targets, including key targets such as RELA, TNF, TP53, IL6, MAPK1, CXCL8, IL-1 β , and MAPK14. The GO and KEGG indicated that HSXFF may be mainly acting on the IL-17 signaling pathway, TNF signaling pathway, NF- κ B signaling pathway, etc. The molecular docking results indicated that isovitexin and procyanidin B1 showed the highest affinity with 3CL and ACE2, respectively, which were confirmed by MD simulation. These findings suggested HSXFF exerted therapeutic effects involving “multi-compounds and multi-targets.” It might be working through directly inhibiting the virus, improving immune function, and reducing the inflammatory in response to anti-COVID-19. In summary, the present study would provide a valuable direction for further research of HSXFF.

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