WITHDRAWN: Elucidating the Mechanisms of Action of Chinese Medicine for the Treatment of COVID-19 via Systems Pharmacology and Virtual Screening Approaches

Abstract

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic is threatening public health security in China. Owing to the severity of this epidemic, identifying a proper treatment for COVID-19 is crucial. Although the Quing-Fei-Pai-Du (QFPD) decoction preliminary displayed promising clinical efficacy, its potential biological mechanism has not been explored for further pharmaceutical development and treatment. Through systems pharmacology and virtual screening approaches, we explored the potential mechanism of action and the active ingredients of the QFPD decoction for COVID-19 treatment. A ingredients-targets dataset was generated. ADME/Tox and molecular docking analyses were conducted to screen the potentially-active ingredients. Protein-protein interaction network and the detection algorithm were applied to dynamically identify functionally-relevant protein groupings. Totally, 705 ingredients and 1,489 targets were obtained. Docking revealed that 40 components could be promising active ingredients, 6 of which (Neohesperidin, Naringenin, Liquiritigenin, Apigenin, Isoquercitrin and Herbacetin), were highlighted according to the comprehensive analysis. The enrichment analysis of the highlighted ingredients showed that several significant pathways could be highly related to their mechanisms of action, such as response to oxygen levels, response to oxidative stress, and blood circulation. Overall, our findings suggest the promising effects of the QFPD decoction for COVID-19 treatment. Further experimental and clinical verifications are needed.Authors Xiting Wang and Meng Liu contributed equally to this work.

Antiviral mechanisms of candidate chemical medicines and traditional Chinese medicines for SARS-CoV-2 infection

“…QFPD might inhibit the invasion and replication of SARS-CoV-2 by directly targeting the viral 3C protein and host ACE2 (Huang et al, 2020). Recent studies showed that QFPD can improve several pathways in patients with COVID-19, such as response to oxygen levels, response to oxidative stress, and blood circulation (Wang et al, 2020e). Moreover, QFPD also can inhibit arachidonic acid metabolic pathway, and thereby regulating inflammatory cytokines (Ren et al, 2020c), suggesting this decoction has a positive effect on COVID-19 treatment.…”