Pharmacological mechanism of action of Lianhua Qingwen in the treatment of COVID-19 and facial neuritis.

Objective: Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) can cause not only respiratory symptoms but also facial paralysis. Lianhua Qingwen (LHQW) has been reported to have therapeutic effects on COVID-19 and facial neuritis (FN). We explored the potential mechanism of LHQW in the treatment of COVID-19 and FN through a network-pharmacology approach.

Methods: Active compounds and relevant targets of LHQW were obtained from the databases of Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database, HERB, UniProt Knowledge Base, SwissADME, and Swiss Target Prediction. Disease targets of COVID-19 and FN were acquired from Gene Cards. Database For Annotation, Visualization And Integrated Discovery and Metascape were used to search the biological functions of intersecting targets. After identifying the core targets and their corresponding ingredients, KEGG Mapper analyzes the localization of core targets in key pathways. AutoDock were employed to conduct molecular docking of the core targets and their corresponding ingredients.

Results: We obtained four core genes: interleukin (IL)-8, IL-1B, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α. Database searching revealed the anti-inflammatory and antiviral effects of LHQW may be related to the action of aleo-emodin, hyperforin, kaempferol, luteolin, and quercetin on these four genes by regulating the pathways of IL-17 and NOD-like receptor. The molecular-docking results of the four core targets and their corresponding active ingredients showed good binding activity between receptors and ligands.

Conclusions: We uncovered the active ingredients, potential targets, and biological pathways of LHQW for COVID-19 and FN coinfection. Our data provide a theoretical basis for further exploration of the mechanism of action of LHQW in treatment of COVID-19 and FN.